L- 



MARYLAND 

AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 



^^ '^ o 



MARYLAND 



AS A 



PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 



BY 



NEWTON D. MERENESS 

SOMETIME UNIVERSITY FELLOW IN HISTORY 
IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



The English subjects, who left their native country to 
settle in the wilderness of America, had the privilges of 
other Englishmen. They knew their value, and -ui'ere 
desirous of having them perpetuated to their posterity. 

— DULANV. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1901 

All rights reserved 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two CoHifcs Received 

AUG, 2 1901 

COPVBIOHT EKTBV 

CLASS ^'^XXl. N». 

COPY 8. 



COPTKIGHT, 1901, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



NoriDool] ^rt0B 

J. S. Cuihing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
Norwood M«n. I'.S.A. 



PREFACE 

Since the founding of Maryland, science has given 
man a wonderful mastery over the forces of nature, has 
so penetrated the crusts enveloping the religious thought 
of sects and nations, that man has been found to be the 
maker even of bibles ; and while thus causing him to see 
himself as the centre of the universe, man has demanded 
the right to govern himself. In no other place upon this 
American continent is there to be found so good an ex- 
ample of a people who, after a struggle of nearly a century 
and a half, made the transition from a monarchical gov- 
ernment to a "government of the people, for the people, 
and by the people " as in Maryland ; and the attempt 
has been made in the following pages to enable the reader 
to enter into the experience of that people engaged in 
that struggle. 

The charter, the constitutional basis of the government, 
was granted by a monarch who had unusually high 
notions concerning the divine right of kings. It bestowed 
on the lord proprietor the powers of an absolute monarch. 
For many years the province was too sparsely populated 
to admit of the development of a political life ; but the 
sense of individual freedom was strong from the first, and 
was encouraged by disturbances from without until a 
successful revolt was effected. The revolt not only gave 
the people control of their branch of the legislature, but 
also extended the jurisdiction of the law-making body. 
An industrial development, a growth of social pressure. 



VI PREFACE 

iincl the immorality of the clergy then instigated tlie 
people's representatives to encroach on the lord proprie- 
tor's powers until they became supreme in nearly every 
department of the government. 

The author has gathered the material for this book 
from original matter, of which the greater part exists 
only in manuscript ; and although the leading facts have 
been found in the assembly journals and council records, 
yet the land office records, the more important wills, the 
Maryland Gazette, and numerous letters have been drawn 
upon in the effort to get nearer to the life of the people 
and thereby present the reader with a more lifelike 
picture. 

The book has been written as a dissertation for the 
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Columbia University, 
and the author desires to express his sense of obligation 
to the friends of the university as well as to those mem- 
bers of its faculty wdio have given him encouragement and 
assistance ; but especially does he wisli to acknowledge 
his indebtedness to Professor Herbert L. Osgood, at whose 
suggestion the work was undertaken and under whose 
guidance it has been carried on, for whatever measure of 
success has been attained. 

Acknowledgment is also due to Drs. F. E. Sparks, 
B. C. Steiner, G. A. Leakin, and Mr. John Gatchell of 
the Maryland Historical Society, and Mr. L. H. Dielman 
of the State Library, for assistance in the seaieli for 
material. 



NEWTON 1). MEUENESS. 



New York CitV, 
June, IWl. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 

PAGK 

The Evolution of the Proprietary Province : 

England vs. Spain 1 

The earliest English patents for colonization .... 2 

Trade and the corporate colony ....... 2 

Land tenure, border defence, and the proprietary province . 3 

The British Empire and the royal province .... 4 

The Maryland Charter : 

Absolutism in England at the time it was granted ... 5 

Its monarchical nature and its early mediaeval origin . . 6 

The lord proprietor's territorial rights 7 

The lord proprietor's governmental rights ..... 7 

Rights reserved to the crown 

Rights guaranteed to the people . 

The charter's double aspect ....... 9 

Its elasticity , 9 

Forces determining the Development of the Proprietary Government: 

(a) The democratic tendencies in the New World ... 10 
(6) Disturbances from without : 

The petition of the Virginians against the Maryland charter 1 1 

Claiborne vs. Maryland 13 

Cornwallis, Ingle, and the English civil war . . .18 

The Claiborne and Ingle rebellion 20 

The seizure of the government by the Puritan commis- 
sioners 21 

The Fendall rebellion 26 

The boundary dispute between William Penn and Lord 

Baltimore 29 

J The Protestant Revolution of 1689 33 

The royal government — increase in the power of the 

representative body 42 

(c) Industrial, social, and political development ... 44 



VIU CONTENTS 

PART I 

TERRITORIAL AXD SOCIAL RELATIONS 

CHAPTER I 

Lank amj the Land Office 

PAGE 

The Feudal Features of the Land System 49 

Ownersliip : 

Tlie granting of land ......... 50 

Steps by which title wa.s acquired ...... 51 

Freeholds 62 

Manors 52 

Proprietary niaiuns and reserves ...... 58 

Vacant lands 54 

Surplus lands 55 

Escheated lands .......... 56 

Loss of the e.ssentials of a fief on the side of ownership . . 58 

Jurisdiction, or the Administration of the Land Office : 

Three distinct periods 68 

The early development of the system of administration . . 58 

The formal erection of the land office 60 

Public vs. private nature of the land office durinc; the period df 

royal government 61 

Governor vs. aeent upon the restoration of the proprietary gov- 
ernment 6:J 

The private side of the office after the Restoration . . .65 
The public side of the office after the Restoration . .6!) 

The final contest over the (juestion as to whether the office 

should be treated as public or as private . . . 72 

CHAPTER II 

Territouial Revenue 

Grounds for (Opposition to Territorial Reveime .... 76 

Purchase Money paid for Land ........ 76 

Complaint about the price asked for vacant lands ... 77 
Quit-rent,s : 

Gradual increase of the rate ....... 78 

Payment of the rents in tobacco at twopence per pound . 79 

A full equivalent for the rents 79 

Jealousy with respect to it 80 



CONTENTS IX 

PAGE 

Expiration of the law by whicii it had been given ... 82 

Regret of the people for its loss 82 

Failure to obtain another 83 

Raising and lowering of the rents in new grants ... 85 

Alienation Fines : 

Successful resistance to the demand for alienation fines on lands 

devised ........... 85 

Diificulty in securing payment of other alienation fines . . 86 

Ferry Licenses, controversy over ....... 87 

Port Duties, controversy over ........ 89 

Collection of the Revenue : 

Rent-rolls 92 

Collectors 92 

Rent-roll keepers 93 

Farming of the rents ......... 93 

Charges of extortion 93 

Success of the Proprietor in preserving his Rights to the Territorial 

Revenue .......... 94 

Amount of the Revenue 94 

Its Effect upon the Government 95 

CHAPTER III 

The Activity of the Assembly ix Territorial Affairs 

The Mediaeval Fief vs. the Maryland Assembly . . . .96 

The Lord Proprietor fails to induce the Assembly to provide the 

Province with the Military Features of a Fief . . . 9(5 
The Lord Proprietor concedes to the Assembly the Right of initiat- 
ing Legislation ......... 97 

Legislation in Support of the liord Proprietor's Territorial -Jurisdic- 
tion previous to 1689 ........ 97 

Legislation against the Proprietor during the Period of Royal Gov- 
ernment .......... 97 

The Lord Proprietor disallows the Act for determining the Bounds 

of Estates 98 

Growing Disaffection between Landlord and Tenants ... 99 
The Imposition of a Tax on the Cultivated Part of the Proprietary 

Estates 99 

The Attempt to tax the Proprietor's Quit-rents .... 100 

Effective Resolves of the Lower House ...... 101 

The People and their Representatives against Escheat . . . 102 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 

The iNnusTiUAi, Development 

PAGE 

The Prevalence of the Economic Motive 104 

The Tobacco Industry, through Difficulty in regulating it^ promotes 
the Cause of Popular Government: 

The small planters are jealous of the large planters . . . 106 
In the interest of the small planters the lord proprietor disallows 

the act for requiring a cessation from planting . . . 108 

Failure of attempts to limit the number of ports . . . 109 

Failure of the attempt to make a law against deceitful packing . 110 

A critical condition 110 

OflBcers' fees and dues to the clergy become the great obstacles 

to a regulation Ill 

Failure of the law limiting the number of plants . . .113 
The Virginia inspection law makes the condition still more 

critical in Maryland . . . . . . . .114 

The passage of the Maryland inspection act . . . .117 

It causes the price of tobacco to advance ..... 118 

The Growth of Other Industries leads both to Industrial Inde- 
pendence and to Popular Government : 
Early attempts to encourage the sowing of grain, the planting of 

corn, and the raising of stock 120 

The growing of hemp and flax is recommended .... 121 
The Palatines open the resources of Frederick County . .122 

Wheat growing 123 

Iron manufacture ........ 123 

Road making 124 

Exports 125 

Currency and public credit. 126 

CHAPTER V 

The Social Development 

The Dependence of Political Activity upon Social Conditions . . 129 

Absence of Social Pressure in the Seventeenth Century . . . 130 
In the Eighteenth Century the Facilities for Intercourse and the 

Population increase ........ 131 

The Divergence of Extremes between Social Classes : 

Slaves ............ 132 

Servants ........... 133 



CONTENTS 



XI 



Paupers 136 

Insolvent debtors 136 

Failure to educate the children of the middle class . . . 137 

The favored sons are educated in schools outside of the province 145 

The educated become lawyers 145 

I—*' Alliance between the lawyers and the uneducated commonalty . 146 

The aflfluence of the upper social extreme ..... 147 

Concentration of wealth and power ...... 148 

The Opposition to the Government is invigorated by the Lawyers 

and the Existence of Hisrh Social Pressure .... 149 



PART II 



GOVERNMENT 



CHAPTER I 



The Executive 

The Lord Proprietor : 

His position at the head of the official system 

The personality of each lord proprietor 

Exercise of control through his governor . 

Exercise of control through other officers . 

Exercise of control through the veto . 
The Governor : 

Powers and duties ..... 

Instructions from his superior 

The personality of each governor from the year 

Salary ........ 

The Council : 

Duties 

Size 

Tenure ....... 

Decrease in the amount of business transacted i 

Concentration of offices in the council 

Character of the members of the council 

The maintenance of the council . 
The Official System under the Governor and Council : 

Creation of offices ...... 



1715 



II council 



153 
154 

158 
158 
159 

159 
161 
163 
171 

174 
175 
175 
175 
176 
177 
181 

184 



Xll CONTENTS 

PACK 

Appointment of officers . . 186 

Centralization and sale of offices 190 

Fees of office . . 191 

Popular Criticism of the Official System 192 

CHAPTER II 
The Legislature 

The Durham Assembly : 

Its limited legislative activity 194 

The Lord Proprietor's Charter Risht with Respect to calling the 

Maryland Assembly 195 

At First the Freemen assembled in Person or by Proxy . . . 195 

Representation is established 196 

The Assembly is divided into Two Houses 197 

The Upper House : 

Its membership 197 

Its organization 198 

The Lower House : 

Suffrage 198 

Qualifications of delegates . 199 

Compulsory voting 201 

The unit of representation 201 

The control over election writs passes from the lord proprietor 

to the Assembly 201 

Annual assemblies ......... 206 

Triennial elections ......... 206 

Decline of the lord proprietor's power to call, prorogue, and 

dissolve the Assembly 207 

The control over the conduct of elections pa.sses from the lord 

proprietor to the Assembly 208 

Party spirit and electioneering ....... 212 

Voting 212 

The lower hou.se becomes the judge of the elections, returns, 

and qualifications of its own members ..... 213 
The lower house seeks to preserve the independence of its 

members 213 

Ability and parliamentary skill of the delegates . . 215 

Pay to assemblymen 218 

Officers 219 

Committees 220 



CONTENTS xiii 

PAGE 

Parliamentary Procedure 221 

The Lord Proprietor gives up his Claim to the Sole Right of initiat- 
ing Legislation 222 

Money Bills originate only in the Lower House .... 224 

Decline of the Lord Proprietor's Veto Power 225 

The Resolutions of the Lower House have much of the Force of 

Laws 226 

CHAPTER III 

The Administration of Justice 

Theory and Practice with Respect to Justice 228 

The Establishment of Courts previous to 1689 : 

The court of appeals 229 

The provincial court 229 

Manorial courts 230 

Hundred courts 230 

County courts 231 

Justices court for the recovery of small debts .... 232 

The chancery court 232 

The admiralty court 233 

The probate court 233 

Centralization previous to the Revolution of 1689 .... 233 

Decentralization under the Royal Government ..... 234 

The Lord Proprietor is denied the Right of erecting Courts . . 235 

The Establishment of Circuit Courts by Act of Assembly , . 237 
Jurisdiction of Each of the Courts : 

That of the county courts is extended 237 

That of the provincial court is restricted ..... 239 

That of the court for the recovery of small debts is extended . 241 

That of the chancery court is restricted 242 

That of the commissary general, or judge of probate, vs. that of 

the deputy commissary in each county 243 

Appeals 245 

Judicial Procedure 246 

The Number of Justices 247 

Appointment of Justices 247 

Salary of Justices 248 

Attempts to increase that of the chief justice of the provincial 

court 250 

Incompetency of the Justices of the Provincial Court . . . 251 



XIV CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Reform of the Provincial Court 252 

Character of the Justices of the County Courts .... 253 

Corporal Punishment and the Criminal Code 254 

Prisons ............ 255 

The Long and Vehement Contest over the Question of the Extension 
of the English Statutes to Maryland : 
The early tendency against such extension .... 257 

On the eve of the Revolution of 1689 the lower house demands 

that the people shall have their right to those statutes . . 264 
The royal government more favorable to the extension, but the 

question is left unsettled 265 

The lord proprietor, from 1722 to 1732, stubbornly resists the 

extension 267 

The charter and the resolves of the lower iiouse in regard to the 

matter 268 

The judge's oatli 270 

Dulany, the leader in the lower house and the author of a 

pamphlet 275 

— The lower house triumpliant 276 



CHAPTER IV 

Military Affairs 

The Dependence of the Lord Proprietor upon the People for Military 

Protection 279 

The Training and Discipline of the Militia : 

Weakne.ss of the militia laws 280 

Contention that those laws had expired ..... 287 

Arms and Ammunition : 

A part of the tobacco duty as a fund for the purchase of them . 290 
The lord proprietor charged with not purchasing as the fund 

provided .......... 291 

The crown directs that one-fourth of the duty be a fund fur that 

purpose 291 

A new dispute with respect to liiat duty arises in the year 1739 293 
^- The lower house wins a series of triumplis in the course of the 

dispute 294 

No fund for that purpose after liio year 1749 .... 302 
Fortifications : 

Coast fortifications and the tonnage duty 303 



CONTENTS XV 

PAGE 

Forts on the Pennsylvania border because of the boundary 

dispute 306 

Forts on the western frontier for protection from the Indians . 307 
War Powers of the Governor : 

No tax or imposition without the consent of the lower house . 310 
No war outside of the province without the consent of the lower 

house 310 

The lower house attempts to instruct commissioners to a peace 

conference 311 

The lower house nearly annihilates the governor's power over 

the militia 312 

Supply Bills for carrying on War : 

The attempt of the lower house to appropriate the license 

money from ordinaries 319 

The attempt of the lower house to increase the duty on convicts 

and to weaken the war powers of the governor . . . 325 
The feeling of Protestants against Catholics makes the lower 

house more hostile to the government 326 

The lower house vs. the governor and his secretary . . . 330 
The lower house seeks to encroach on the royal prerogative . 332 
The lower house claims the sole right of nominating com- 
missioners 333 

The lower house insists on imposing a double tax on Catholics . 333 
The lower house seeks to tax the proprietor's quit-rents and 

uncultivated estates 333 

The lower house seeks to tax lucrative offices .... 333 
The conditions existing during the fourth intercolonial war 

favorable to the rise of popular government .... 338 



CHAPTER V 

Finance 

Importance attached to Money Matters 339 

Taxes : 

(a) Property tax 340 

(6) Poll tax 341 

Who were taxables ? 341 

Preparation of the lists of taxables 342 

Passing accounts, imposing, assessing, apportioning, and 

collecting "the tax . ■ 342 



XVI CONTENTS 



PAOB 

Duties 343 

The collection of duties . . . . . . 343 

Annual Receipts from Taxes and Duties 343 

Controversy over the Tobacco Duty for the Support of Government 344 

From the year 1739 the lower house contended that its collection 

was illegal 345 

Trouble in building a House for the Governor 349 

After expending the appropriation of four thousand dollars it 
was not enclosed ........ 

The roof falls 

Controversy over the License Money from Ordinaries : 

Previous to 1689 the lord proprietor gave it to the secretary . 354 



claim 



352 
363 



354 
355 
356 
357 

358 
.360 
362 



Under the royal government the secretary claimed it for himself 

while the lower house claimed it for the country . 
Governor Hart claimed it for the crown 
From 1717 to 1739 it was given to the lord proprietor 
From 1740 to 1763 it was appropriated for war purposes 
The council then declined to support the lord proprietor's 

and he gave it up 

Controversy over Money arising from Fines and Forfeitures 
Controversy over the Allowance to the Council 

In the year 1747 the allowance was made for the last time . .367 
Controversy over paying the Clerk of the Council .... 368 
The Contest over Officers' Fees : 

The right to fix their amount claimed as incidental to the right 

of creating offices and appointing officers .... 373 
Previous to 1689 they were usually fixed and regulated by the 

governor and council 374 

Upon the establishment of the royal government they were fixed 

and regulated by act of assembly 375 

Reduction of them in 1719 375 

Unsuccessful attempt of the lower house to have them reduced 

one-half in 1724 378 

Without any regulation from 1725 to 17.33 379 

From 1733 to 1747 they were fixed and regulated by the lord 

proprietor's proclamation .381 

From 1747 to 1770 they were fixed and regulated by the act 

which provided for the inspection of tobacco . . 386 

In 1770 the attempt of the lower house to correct abuses and to 

make some reductions resulted in the loss of the old law . 386 
The old table then continued by the governor's proclamation . 389 
Controversy in the Assembly over the proclamation . . . 389 



CONTENTS XVU 

PAGE 

Charles Carroll vs. Daniel Dulany and the proclamation . . 393 

Uprising of the people at the polls against the proclamation . 399 
Popular leaders contended that the people at the polls were the 

ultimate authority 399 



CHAPTER VI 

Local Government 

The Lack of Facilities for Intercourse increased the Importance 

attached to Local Affairs 401 

The Increasing Number of Divisions 401 

The County : 

Functions of the county court 403 

Taxing power of the county court 404 

The almshouse and workhouse . 405 

The school 405 

The Hundred : 

Its functions before the erection of counties .... 406 

It becomes a constablewick 406 

Duties of the constable 406 

The hundred's representation in the county court . . . 406 
Functions increase toward the end of the proprietary govern- 
ment 407 

The Manor : 

Its officers and courts 408 

Examples of the business transacted in the courts . . . 408 

The Parish : 

Its officers 410 

Powers and duties of the vestry and church wardens . .411 

Towns : 

General town acts 413 

Particular town acts 414 

Town commissioners and their directions for laying out towns . 415 

The government of Annapolis before it became a city . . 416 

The government of Charles-Town on Northeast River . , 417 

The government of Baltimore 418 

Town government in general 419 

Cities : 

St. Mary's 419 

Annapolis : 



XVlll CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Its officers, their appointment or election, and their term of 

office 420 

The powers and duties of the corporation 42 1 

Courts 421 

Extension of suffrage and extension of the privileges of the free- 
holders 422 

The lower house vs. the governor with respect to granting the 
charter 422 



CHAPTER VII. 
Religion, the Church, and the Clergy 

Social Expediency the Basis of Law 423 

The Lord Proprietor's Promise of Religious Toleration . . . 424 

The Jesuit Priests : 

Their claim that the canon law prevailed propria vigore . . 426 

Their requests and the strength of their party .... 427 

The lord proprietor in the contest with them .... 428 

Toleration in Practice : 

Protestant opposition the support of the Claiborne and Ingle 

rebellion 4.30 

The governor and council bound by oath to promote toleration 4:U 

The toleration act 432 

Intolerance of the Puritans 434 

Trouble with the Quakers 435 

Catholic government vs. Protestant lower house . . . 435 

Increase of Protestant opposition ...... 436 

Protestant opposition the principal support of the Revolution of 

1689 437 

The Establishment of the Church of England 437 

Dr. Bray vs. Quakers and Catholics 439 

Attempts to establish Episcopal Authority : 

Dr. Bray's efforts 440 

Governor Seymour's opposition 441 

The Assembly attempts to establish a spiritual court . . 442 

The Bisliop of London appoints two commissaries . . . 443 

Failure to establish their authority by act of assembly . . 446 

The lower house vs. the clergy and episcopal authority . . 447 

Appointment of Mr. Henderson as sole commissary . . . 448 

The lord proprietor vs. the Bishop of London .... 449 

Mr. Henderson left without power lays down his office . 4o0 



CONTENTS xix 



The lord proprietor uses his right of patronages and advowsons 
of churches as a means of finding places of profit for his 

ignoble friends 450 

Another attempt of the Assembly to establish a spiritual court . 451 

In vain the clergy again ask for a bishop 452 

A spiritual court established by act of assembly . . . 452 

Lack of Foresight in providing for the Maintenance of the Clergy : 

Size of parishes 453 

Dues to the clergy and the regulation of the tobacco industry . 454 

The large incomes to many of the clergy 456 

The most brazen faced receives the largest .... 456 
The uprising against the clergy upon the expiration of the in- 
spection act 457 

Contention that Vestries were entitled to the Right of appointing 

Ministers 458 

Contention that the Law which was the Foundation of the Church 

was null and void 458 

Conditions with Respect to the Church favorable to the Rise of 

Popular Government 459 



CHAPTER VIII 

Relations with the Home Government 

The Lord Proprietor's Position between the People of his Province 

and the Home Government 460 

The Quarrel with his Majesty's Collector of Customs . . , 462 
The Lord Proprietor's Government is taken from him . . . 463 
After the Representative Body has acquired much Power it is 

restored ........... 464 

Controversy with Respect to the Appointment of an Agent : 

Under the royal government an agent is appointed by both 

houses 465 

After the restoration of the proprietary government the lower 

house demands the sole right of appointing an agent . . 467 
The threat of the lower house to ask the crown for an order to 

direct the passage of the agency bill 470 

The appointment of an agent paid with money raised by sub- 
scription 471 

The agent's representation of the proprietary government in an 
unfavorable light 471 



XX CONTENTS 

PACK 

The alarming situation causes the lord proprietor to make con- 
cessions 471 

During the fourth intercolonial war the agency question again 

comes to the front 472 

Grievances against the home government become greater than 

those against the lord proprietor ...... 474 

The People vs. the Home Government previous to the Passage of 

the Stamp Act . . . . . . . . .475 

The Stamp Act : 

Treatment of the stamp distributer 477 

Procedure of the lower house ....... 478 

Stamped paper 483 

The course taken by the court of Frederick County . . . 484 

The Sons of Liberty and the opening of ofiSces and other courts 485 

Daniel Dulany and the repeal 486 

The Townshend Acts and the Lower House 488 

The Non-importation Association 491 

The Boston Port Bill, Regulation Act, and the Maryland Convention 4!);} 

Burning of Tea 495 

The Provisional Government 498 

Attachment to the Old Constitution 500 

The Declaration of Independence 501 

The Proprietary Government ceases to exist 502 

Conclusion 502 

Appendix 507 

Bibliography 521 

Index .....••••••• 525 



MARYLAND 

AS A PROPRIETARY PROVmCE 



INTRODUCTION 

Long before the English made their earliest attempts 
to found colonies on the American continent, the right 
to the newly discovered regions of the globe had been 
divided by papal bulls between Spain and Portugal. Later, 
in the year 1580, Portugal, with all her possessions, was 
brought under the dominion of Philip II of Spain. This 
same Spanish king was at that time the head of the chief 
branch of the House of Hapsburg, which by a series of 
marriages had for some time been threatening to bring 
all Europe under its rule. Henry VII had tied England 
to Spain by the marriage bond. His son, Henry VIII, 
however, not only severed that bond, but also caused 
Parliament to declare the Church of England independent 
of the pope. 

From the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, daughter 
of Henry VIII, the relations between England and Spain 
became more and more hostile ; and while by papal bulls 
England and her merchants were denied the right of trad- 
ing in the western seas, "silver" ships were unloading in 
Spanish ports the treasure taken by conquest and plunder 
from Mexico and Peru. It was under such conditions 
that the queen of England, first, silently approved of the 
piratical voyages of her most daring sea rovers, and, later, 
on the eve of war, commissioned a fleet under Sir Francis 
Drake to do all possible damage to the Spanish marine. 
It was under such conditions, also, that the queen, in '■■ 

B 1 



2 INTRODUCTION 

the year 1578, issued to Sir Humphrey Gilbert her first 
patent for colonization. 

By this patent Gilbert was to become owner of all terri- 
tory — not already possessed by a Christian prince in amity 
with England — which lay within two hundred leagues 
of any colony that, within the period of six years, he might 
plant, reserving to the crown but one-fifth part of all the 
gold and silver ore. With the ownership of the territory, 
Gilbert, his heirs and assigns, should enjoy the right of 
governing the colony by means of such laws and ordi- 
nances as he or they might make, provided these were not 
contrary to the laws of the mother country. After the 
lapse of six years without the founding of a colony, a like 
patent was issued to Sir Walter Raleigh, a man strongly 
bent on the destruction of the Spanish power. He, how- 
ever, accomplished no more than the planting of an ephem- 
eral colony on Roanoke Island. 

But in the year 1588, two years before the expiration 
of Raleigh's patent, the great Spanish Armada was de- 
feated by the English. After that event the Spanish 
power on the sea was so crippled that a considerable body 
of English merchants began to take the active interest 
in trade with the New World, whicli had hitherto been 
largely confined to the sea rover. Corporations were 
formed for planting colonies with the expectation that 
the returns in fish and peltries, if not in the precious 
metals, would make the undertaking a profitable one. 
As a result of this movement, a colony was soon founded 
In Virginia ; and, later, others were founded in New 
England. But as neither gold nor silver was found, and 
as the profits of trade in fish and peltries were disappoint- 
ing, the colony in Virginia was not prosperous; and the 
prosperity of those in New England was due not to the 
people who were seeking merely the profits of trade, but 



IXTRODUCTIOX 6 

to the people who were seeking a new home as a refuge 
from religious oppression. The consequence was that the 
chief interest in the New World centred not in trade, but 
in ownership of land. 

While the English had been accustomed to the corpora- 
tion as an instrument for carrying on trade, the same peo- 
ple, as w-ell as those on the Continent, had for a long time 
been familiar with the tenure of land by large proprie- 
tors and their subtenants. Moreover, in a few instances, 
where border defence had been especially necessary to one 
who had performed some marked service for his sover- 
eign not only had the ownership of the land of an entire 
border county been awarded, but also an unusually large 
degree of independence in the government of that county. 
Therefore, when Queen Elizabeth and her ministers saw 
the possibility of extending her claims across the Atlantic, 
and of gaining a foothold there against the Spaniard, it 
was only natural that in the patent, first to Gilbert, and 
then to Raleigh, provision, though only in germ, should 
be made for the development of a similar institution. 

The overwhelming defeat of the Armada, and the ab- 
sorbing attention which immediately after was devoted 
to trade, caused the idea of reproducing that border in- 
stitution to lie dormant for a time. But when trade had 
yielded disappointment, when massacres by a new enemy, 
the Indian, had created new fear, and when it must have 
been felt that wealth was to be had from the Xew World 
mainly through extracting it from the soil by cultivation 
and improvement, that institution was re^nved under 
Elizabeth's successor. James I. Tsith much more complete- 
ness of outline than appears in the patents of Gilbert and 
Raleigh, and successfully transplanted in the Xew World 
in the form of the propiietarv province. 

However, before such a pro%ince had been successfully 



4 INTRODUCTION 

founded, a third form of government had been brought 
into existence among the English colonies of tlie New 
World, namely, that of the royal province. AMiile the 
corporate colony was originally founded in the interest of 
trade, wliile the proprietary province was more in accord 
with the English system of land tenure and had been con- 
sidered advantageous as a means of defence, the royal 
province more naturally met the demands for greater 
unity and more system and strength in the government 
of what soon became the British Empire. Consequently, 
with the growth of the colonies, in the interest of such 
unity, system, and strength both the proprietary province 
and the corporate colony were all the more liable, upon 
a real or a pretended violation of the terms of the grant, 
to be made royal provinces. 

But while on the one hand there was the inclination of 
the mother country to reduce all other forms of govern- 
ment in her colonies to that of the royal province, on the 
other hand the colonists struggled to bring the government 
over them more and more under their own control. This 
struggle took one form in the corporate colony, another 
in the royal province, and still another in the proprietary 
province. In the case of the corporate colony, the seat of 
government was soon removed from the mother country 
to the colony ; this weakened the control of the crown, 
the colonists then became members of the corporation, 
and a commonwealth was thereby established. In the 
case of the ro3-al province there was usually a long and 
vehement contest between the governor, who was ap- 
pointed by the crown, and the popular branch of the 
legislature, during which the latter gradually encroached 
upon the powers of tlie former. In the case of the pro- 
prietary province, the form and the results of that struggle 
may best be seen from a study of the government of 



INTRODUCTION 6 

Maryland during her entire proprietary period. This 
mucli, however, may be affirmed at the outset, namely, 
that the charter of no other English province provided, 
from one aspect at least, for such a strong and absolute 
form of monarchical government as did that of Maryland ; 
and yet w^hen the Revolution of 1776 put an end to the 
colonial era, the people of Maryland were more strongly 
attached to their old form of government than were those 
of any other of the thirteen colonies. 

In the year 1603 a monarch ascended the throne of 
England Avho had unusually high notions concerning the 
divine right of kings, and who, accordingly, made enor- 
mous pretensions relating to his prerogative. He quar- 
relled most obstinately with his first three Parliaments, 
and for more than ten years of his reign ruled with little 
aid from that body. The practice of selling monopolies 
and patents of nobility, which had become a grievance in 
former reigns, he continued in the face of increasing pro- 
tests. It was this very monarch. King James I, who, in 
the year 1623, granted by charter the province of Avalon, 
in Newfoundland, to one of his principal secretaries of 
state, George Calvert. The soil and climate of Avalon 
proved to be unsuitable for the planting of a colony. 
James I was succeeded in the year 1625 by his son, 
Charles I. After Charles had, within four years of his 
accession, angrily dissolved his third Parliament and 
entered upon his eleven years of absolute rule with- 
out even one session of that body, George Calvert, who 
in the meantime had been created Lord Baltimore, was 
about to secure the royal grant of the province of Mary- 
land by a charter which was a copy of that of Avalon. 
George Calvert died in April, 1632, before the charter 
had passed the great seal ; but, bearing the date of June 
twentieth of the same year, it was issued to his eldest 



b INTRODUCTION 

son, Cecilius. The charter, which was the constitutional 
basis of the proprietary government of Maryhmd, was, 
therefore, brought into existence in an atmosphere of 
absolutism. 

As already in part indicated, the original model on 
which this charter was drawn was that of tlie border 
county of Durham — known as a county palatine — 
which, in its turn, was, in most essentials, a re})roduction 
by William the Norman of the mark created b}^ ('harle- 
magne in the frontier districts of his empire for the })ur- 
pose of defence. Again, the county palatine, of which 
Durham, in the year 1G23, was yet a strong type, was a 
great crown fief, the powers of whose lord were regal in 
kind, and inferior only in degree to those of the king.^ 
The Maryland charter was therefore based upon an insti- 
tution which was a kingdom within a kingdom. For so 
long a time as a monarch of the Stuart type sat upon the 
English throne, it conferred upon the grantee, the lord 
proprietor, both royal rights over the territory and monar- 
chical powers of government. " It conferred on the 
grantee," says an able writer, "probably the most exten- 
sive political privileges ever enjoyed by an Englisli subject 
since the great houses had bowed before the successive 
oppression of Yorkist and Tudor rule."^ 

Before 1G23 the head of the palatinate of Durham, who 
was always a bishop, had been shorn of some of his power ; 
but notwithstanding this, the lord proprietor of the new 
American palatinate was to have "as ample rights, liber-, 
ties, immunities, and temporal franchises, whatsoever, as 
well by sea as by land, as any bisliop of Durliam had ever 

1 Lapsley, "County Palatine of Durham " ; Osgood, "The Proprietary 
Province as a Form of Colonial Government." 

'-Doyle, "English Colonies in America: Virginia, Maryland, and the 
Carolinas," p. 281. 



INTRODUCTION i 

had, exercised, used, and enjoyed, or ever had a right to 
hold, use, or enjoy," ^ 

His rights were both territorial and governmental. He 
was made the absolute lord and proprietor of the province 
which he was to hold in free and common socage, and pay 
to the crown a nominal annual rent of two Indian arrows 
and one-fifth part of all the gold and silver ore. His 
province was made both alienable and inheritable. The 
execution of the statute of quia emptores within the prov- 
ince having been suspended, he was to enjoy the right of 
subinfeudation ; that is, he was given the right to grant 
or lease, any portion of his territory to any person who 
should hold the same of him — and not of the king — in 
fee simple or fee tail. He was given tlie privilege of erect- 
ing manors with courts baron and courts leet, and also of 
erecting ports and harbors wherein the taxes and subsidies 
imposed were to be reserved to him. 

He was given all power necessary to ordain, make, and 
enact laws with the advice and assent of the freemen or 
their deputies, whom, in whatever manner should seem 
best to him, he might call together as often as need should 
require. Laws thus passed were to be published under his 
seal, and executed by him on all the inhabitants of the 
province by the imposition, when necessary, of fines and 
punishments, even to the taking of life or limb. He was 
authorized to appoint all officers necessary for the execu- 
tion of the law, and to delegate to them such powers as 
he saw fit. Whenever there was not time, or whenever, 
owing to some emergency, it did not seem expedient to 
call the deputies together, he might issue ordinances for 
the preservation of the peace or for the better government 
of the people. He was authorized to establish courts, 
appoint judges, try all manner of cases, both civil and 

1 See Appendix. 



8 INTRODUCTION 

criminal, and render and execute judgment. He was 
granted the full power of a captain general, with license 
to wage defensive war, to exercise martial law for tlie 
suppression of rebellion, to build and fortify castles and 
forts, and to direct all minor affairs of a military nature. 
He was authorized to confer titles and honors. He was em- 
powered to erect and incorporate towns into boroughs, and 
boroughs into cities. He was to have the right of patron- 
age and the advowsons of churches, and the license to 
erect, found, dedicate, and consecrate churches and cliapels. 

The lord proprietor of Maryland was, therefore, made 
the grantee of the territory with almost unrestricted privi- 
leges as to the use he might make of it ; he was made the 
fountain of all office, title, and honor ; he was placed at 
the head of the church ; he was made the centre and 
immediate source of all military, executive, and judicial 
authority ; and there was some ground for his claiming 
the right to be the originator and controller of all legis- 
lative activity. 

Althougli the English crown reserved to itself the right 
of control in war, trade, and commerce, yet that crown 
was forever to refrain from taxing, by itself or thiough its 
courts or other agents, the person of any inhabitant of 
Maryland or any property therein. 

But even as King James I was told by his Parliament 
that there could be no king without a people, so the charter 
which gave such extensive powers to the lord proprietor 
of Maryland could have availed that proprietor little liad 
there not been a provision so guaranteeing rights and 
liberties as to induce people to become inhabitants of the 
new province. Accordingly, side by side with the grants 
to the lord proprietor, the charter provided that there 
should l)e no ordinance which could take away the right 
or interest of any person or persons, of, or in member, 



INTRODUCTION 9 

life, freehold, goods, or chattels ; that all laws and ordi- 
nances should be reasonable and, so far as convenient, like 
the laws and customs of England ; and — what was espe- 
cially comprehensive and proved to be far-reaching in its 
consequences — that the people of Maryland should be 
entitled to " all the privileges, franchises, and liberties '" 
which other English subjects enjoyed. 

Finally, therefore, granted during the reign of a king 
who, under the guidance of his theory of divine right, was 
ruling independently of Parliament, and its framer looking 
back, for a model, to an English institution established by 
so absolute a monarch as William the Norman when feu- 
dalism was yet in its prime, and when the modern legis- 
lative Assembly was yet only in germ, the charter of 
Maryland with its long enumeration of sovereign rights 
bestowed on the lord proprietor seemed, indeed, to make 
him quite as absolute within his dominion as was the 
English king within his realm of Britain ; on the other 
hand, those three briefly expressed provisions, by whic 
the rights and liberties of the people were to be securec' 
— when turned to look both backward to Magna Carta 
and forward to the English Bill of Rights and beyond, — 
were destined clearly to contradict many of the other most 
important provisions of the charter, and, as they were en- 
forced, the power, the control of the people waxed, while 
that of the lord proprietor diminished until the former 
became supreme even while the government continued on 
the charter basis. And so the excellence of the charter 
lay in the fact that, although primarily designed to foster 
a strong centralized government, it proved to be in a high 
degree elastic. Thereby it made possible the much 
needed control of the well-trained and able administra- 
tor during the early, the dangerous, and the critical years 
of the colony, while in later years it proved to contain 



10 INTRODUCTION 

ample provision to admit of a suflficieiitly rai)id rise of 
democratic, or rather aristocratic, tendencies. 

In the development of the form of government provided 
by the charter, the forces making for popular self-govern- 
ment were stronger and less impeded in Maryland than 
were similar forces in the mother country. When con- 
fronted by the conditions in the New World, former 
customs were more quickly outgrown and set aside. Dis- 
tance weakened the spirit of awe or reverence for the 
crowned, anointed, and consecrated monarch. The sjmrse- 
ness of the population, A\hicli kept low the value of land, 
the absence of continuous and necessary demands for 
the forces of war, and, especially, the abandonment of 
primogeniture as a rule governing the descent of land, 
were unfavorable to the growth of a new nobility. Then, 
too, among the most wealthy and influential of the people 
of the province were many with whom a leading motive 
J for leaving the Old World was that they might enjoy 
greater political and religious liberty. A yet larger num- 
ber among all ranks were attracted thither by the easy and 
favorable terms on which land was offered. Of these a 
numerous faction was composed of those restless, turbu- 
lent, thriftless adventurers who are ever thronging the 
frontiers. Unable to gain an honest livelihood in the Old 
World, they were perlui|)S even less able to do so in the 
New. They were wanting in moderation, incapable of 
governing themselves, and not disposed to content them- 
selves under the government of another. Although they 
were usually held in subjection in Maryland, yet there 
were occasions on which concessions were made to them in 
order to prevent an uprising. 

During the seventeenth centur}- the great sparseness of 
the population, the absence of towns, and hence the very 
limited social intercourse retarded the growth of political 



INTRODUCTION 11 

life. Had the province been left to itself, the low social 
pressure, and the consequent want of a political awaken- 
ing would, during that century, have prevented more than 
a weak opposition to the claims of the lord .proprietor ; 
but, even from the very beginning, what was wanting in 
the social and political conditions was, in effect, in no 
small measure furnished by disturbances originating in 
external sources or conditions. 

The earliest of such disturbances was a continuance of 
trouble that arose even before the charter was granted. 
It was early in October, 1G29, that the first Lord Baltimore 
arrived in Virginia to make choice of land with a view 
of obtaining another grant from the crown. Upon this 
very first occasion, regardless of the facts that he had but 
a few years before resigned with honor so high an office as 
that of secretary of state, and that he had been a member 
of the provisional council for the government of Virginia, 
he was received with coldness and the spirit of contempt by 
the governor and council of the province. Such treatment 
was provoked both by Lord Baltimore's Catholic faith and 
by the unwillingness of the Virginians to have a new prov- 
ince carved out of the territory which under the charter of 
1609 had been a part of the domain of the London Company. 
As if, therefore, with the hope of driving away this unwel- 
come intruder, the governor and council, with no authority 
for so doing, tendered to him the oath of supremacy and 
allegiance.^ But Lord Baltimore was not one of those men 
that could be so easily turned from his purpose. After the 
object of his visit had been accomplished, he returned to 
England ; and although, owing to continued opposition 
from the Virginians, he did not obtain a grant of the land 
lying south of the James River, — his first choice, — after 

1 Maryland Archives, Proceedings of the Council, 1G30 to 1G07, pp. 
16, 17. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

a lapse of over two years there was granted to his son, 
Ceciliiis, by the charter of ^Maryland, the hind lying north 
of the Potomac, — his second choice. 

Yet within a few months after Cecilius Calvert, the 
second Lord lialtiniorc, liad obtained the charter, the 
crown was presented with a petjJLklii__ag^ainst it from 
the governor, council, and [)lanters of Virginia. The 
petitioners complained that by the new grant they were 
cut off from some of their places of trade. They con- 
tended that contrary to the supposition on which the grant 
had been made, part of the land had been inhabited by 
Virginians. They pretended that the grant of the charter 
of Maryland was a violation of the charter granted to the 
London Company in the year 1000, on the ground that 
the territory of the newly erected province was within the 
limits of what had been granted by that company's charter. 
But that charter had been resumed by the crown in the 
year 1G21, ever since which Virginia had been a royal 
province ; and in support of their claim that a part of 
Maryland had been inhabited by Virginians nothing has 
been found except that Menry Fleet had been trading 
with the Indians, and William Claiborne was about this 
time establishing a trading post on Kent Island. There- 
fore, as there was so little ground for the petition, after 
it had received a formal hearing by the privy council, it 
was not only decided that the charter of INLiryland should 
stand, but tlie governm- and council of Virginia were 
given a royal order to treat Lord lialtimore with the 
courtesy and respect that were due to a person of his rank, 
and also to give the colonists of Maryland such lawful 
assistance as might conduce to the safety and advantage 
of both Maryland and Virginia.^ 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 16.'5() to 10(57, pp. 18-22 ; Sainsbury, Cal- 
endar of State I'apere, 1574 to lUOO. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

But notwithstanding this order, serious trouble from 
Virginia still awaited Lord Baltimore and his officers. 
Amonsf those Virginians who followed the first Lord 
Baltimore to England in order to prevent, if possible, his 
obtaining the charter for which he was seeking was Will- 
iam Claiborne, a member of the council and secretary of 
state for Virginia. This man was one of those who had 
tendered the oaths to Lord Baltimore. He was a young* r 
son of an ancient English family, and in the year 1621, 
after having been commissioned surveyor for the Virginia 
colony, had sailed thither to make his fortune. Since his 
arrival he had prospered and proved himself to be a 
man of marked ability. In the year 1627 and, again, 
in 1628 he had been granted the governor's license to 
make an expedition into the Chesapeake Bay and other 
parts of Virginia for the purpose of exploration and trade 
with the Indians. In the year 1629 he had been made a 
captain and put in command of an expedition that was 
sent against the Indians for tlie purpose of punishing them 
for hostilities recently committed. ^ 

One year later he was in England opposing Lord Balti- 
more ; and while there he first induced a firm of London 
mercliants, Cloberry and Company, to engage him as their 
agent, or special partner, to carry on a trade for furs with 
the Indians to the north of Virginia. Then in May, 1631, 
he obtained from King Charles a license for himself and 
liis colony to trade with Nova Scotia and New England ; 
and less than a year later he was given permission to 
trade with the Dutch plantations at Manhattan, by a 
license which was granted him by the Governor of Vir- 
ginia. 

After such extensive plans had been formed and the 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1636 to 1667, pp. 24-39 ; Browne, " Mary- 
land, tlie History of a Palatinate," Ch. III. 



14 INTRODUCTION 

required license had been obtained, the next step was to 
establisli a tradint^-post at some convenient phice. Accord- 
ingly, an island in the Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of 
the Severn, was chosen for this purpose and named Kent. 
Friendly negotiations for the possession of the island hav- 
ing been made with the Indians, the necessary buildings 
were erected and a number of men stationed therein.^ 

But on this occasion, from the very beginning, Clai- 
borne's business did not prosper. First, disagreements 
arose between him and his company — the merchants 
complaining of the small quantities of peltry which they 
received, and Claiborne comj)laining both as to the quan- 
tity and the quality of the wares which the merchants 
sent out for the trade. At one time the London supplies 
were stopped for more than a year, and as Claiborne did 
not himself reside on the island, the men at the post 
were nearly starved and for a few years in constant dread 
of being cut off by the Indians. 

Such was their condition when, in the year 1633-34, 
the first Maryland colonists, under command of Governor 
Calvert, the lord proprietor's brother, arrived within the 
province. Shortly before their arrival, Claiborne had 
been told that Kent Island was within the province of 
Maryland, and that the men at his trading-post must there- 
fore relinquish all dependence on the government of Vir- 
ginia. But as Claiborne had been the active opponent 
of the lord proprietor, as he was still a member of the 
council of Virginia, as the freemen at his post had been 
allowed one member in the Virginia house of burgesses, 
and as the reply to the petition of the Virginians against 
the Maryland charter had not yet been received, he was 
by no means ready to comply with the demand. 

1 It is probable that Claiborne had thus taken possession of the island 
ten months before the Maryland charter had passed the great seal. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

About the time the Ark and the Dove, the vessels bear- 
ing Governor Calvert and his party, entered the Chesa- 
peake, he laid the matter before the governor and council 
of Virginia for direction ; and in the reply, given March 14, 
1633-34, he was told that there was no more reason for 
giving up that island than there was for giving up any 
other part of Virginia.^ 

For a time the peace was not disturbed. For a month 
or two after the landing of the Maryland colonists the rela- 
tions between them and the Indians were most friendly. 
But, although the answer to the petition of the Vir- 
ginians had by that time been received, there then ap- 
peared a change on the part of the Indians ; and while 
seeking the cause of this, Claiborne was accused by the 
Indian interpreter of having told the natives that the men 
of the new colony were Spaniards and enemies of the 
English.2 Later, on the testimony of the Indians, there 
seemed to be some ground for believing this accusation 
to have been false. But such ground did not appear until 
after an account of that accusation had been given to the 
lord proprietor. As a consequence, the lord proprietor 
issued an instruction which directed that if Claiborne 
still refused to submit and the Maryland force was thought 
to be strong enough, he and his settlement on Kent Island 
should be taken and he be kept a prisoner until further 
orders concerning him.^ 

This instruction bears the date of September 4, 1634. 
Very soon after it had been received by Governor Calvert, 
it must have been acted upon. For only a few months 
later a Maryland force captured a pinnace belonging to 
Claiborne and his company because it was trading in 

1 Proceedings of the Council, IGG7 to 1G87-88, p. 164. 

2 Ibid., pp. 1(J5, IGG, 1G7. 

3 Ibid., p. 168. 



16 INTRODUCTION 

Maryland waters without a license from the Maryland 
government. Althougli the capture was a just and law- 
ful one, and gave Claiborne no ground for action, he, in 
order to make reprisal, armed a shallop and n)annt'd it 
with about thirty men under the connnand of Lieutenant 
Ratcliffe Warren, whom he commissioned to seize any 
vessels belonging to the Maryland government. That 
government, upon hearing of this, armed and equipped 
two pinnaces and sent them out under command of Cap- 
tain Thomas Cornwallis. The two hostile forces met 
April 23, 1635, in the most southern waters of Maryland. 
The Claiborne force fired first, killing one man and 
wounding several. In returning the fire, the ^laryland 
force killed the enemy's commander and two others, and 
thereby caused their surrender.^ Another, but a lesser, 
engagement took place in tlie following month, after which 
the government of Virginia took action in the matter. 
The council of that government was very much aroused 
and embittered against the government of Maryland ; 
but, owing to the above-mentioned commands from King 
Charles, it could do scarcely less than to send commis- 
sioners to Maryland for the purpose of restoring peace. 
This was done, a temporary peace was made, and there 
the matter rested for about a year and a half. 

But in December, 1636, there arrived on the island a 
man who was to play a leading ]:)art in bringing al)()ut the 
subjection of the troublesome islanders to the govern- 
ment of Maryland. 2 This man was George Evelin, whom 
Cloberry and Company had sent out as their attorney, 
authorize(l to take charge of the settlement, and directed 
to recpiest Claiborne to come to England for the purpose 
of explaining his proceedings and adjusting accounts. 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1607 to 1687-88, pp. 169. 170. 
* Streeter, "The First Coininander of Kent Island." 



INTRODUCTION 17 

At first Evelin denied the right of Maryland to have 
jurisdiction over the ishind, denied that Lord Baltimore 
had the exclusive right of trade within the borders of his 
province, and cast reflections on Governor Calvert, saying 
that while in school he had been but a dunce and a block- 
head. In this way he soon won the confidence of the 
islanders and induced Claiborne to deliver to him the 
control of the settlement. But before departing for Eng- 
land, Claiborne must have become suspicious of Evelin's 
intentions. For, having called a meeting of the freemen 
and servants, he tried in their presence to obtain from 
Evelin a X3000 bond not to hand over the island to 
the Marylanders. 

This Evelin refused to give ; and after Claiborne's 
departure and his own adjustment of a few matters, he 
began to study the Maryland charter, with the result 
that he decided that Kent Island could not stand against 
the government of Maryland. He obtained from Gov- 
ernor Calvert a commission appointing him commander 
of the island, and then tried to persuade those under him 
to give their willing submission to the government of 
Maryland. But finding himself unable to accomplish 
his end by such means, he prevailed upon Governor Cal- 
vert to proceed — without waiting for further orders from 
England — to the reduction of the island by force. Ac- 
cordingly, in December, 1637, about forty armed men 
landed on the island, and, the surprise being complete, 
the reduction was easy. However, Evelin in no way had 
the interest of the people at heart, being far more inter- 
ested in obtaining a large manor as the reward for his 
services ; and his treatment of the friends of Claiborne 
was so severe that they would not endure it, but rose in 
rebellion and rescued those arrested for debt. This made 
necessary a second reduction of the island, which was ac- 



18 INTRODUCTION 

complished by a force under Governor Calvert. A little 
later the immediate government of the island was in- 
trusted to other hands than those of George Evelin. 
Finally, as for Claiborne, while he was still absent in 
England the general assembly passed a bill of attainder 
against him, in which his possessions in the province were 
declared forfeited to the proprietor.^ 

For a few years after the passing of that bill Claiborne 
gave the government of iMaryland no serious trouble. 
Nevertheless, so strong and persistent was his spirit of 
revenge that he seems to have been determined to the 
end of his days to lose no favorable opportunity for 
bringing about the overthrow of that government ; and 
in that very session of assembly in which he was attainted 
matters began to shape themselves for the first of such 
opportunities. For, with that session, Thomas Cornwallis, 
who had been the leader of the forces sent against Clai- 
borne's men, began to manifest his disaffection toward the 
lord proprietor and the governor. Cornwallis was a lead- 
ing member of the council of state ; he was the most stal- 
wart military commander in the province ; and at one time 
he was the owner of nearly twenty thousand acres of land. 
As several questions of prime importance came before the 
Assembly, he took a stand in favor of permitting the free- 
men to exercise larger legislative jjower than the lord pro- 
prietor or the governor w^as ready to allow. Shortly after 
tlie prorogation he wrote a letter to the lord proprietor 
in which he complained that the transactions of the As- 
sembly had been prejudicial to the honor and freedom of 
the colonists, that sullicient immunities and privileges 
had not been guaranteed to the church, and tliat the lord 
proprietor's agreement with respect to freedom of trade 

^Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1004, 
pp. 23, 24. 



INTRODUCTION 19 

had not been kept. Finally he threatened to leave the 
province if he were not permitted to enjoy what had been 
promised before his departure from England, ^ 

A little later came on the war in the mother country 
between the king and the Parliament. It could hardly 
have been otherwise than that such a war should alarm 
the lord proprietor and incite such Maryland colonists as 
Cornwallis, his followers, and others sympathizing with 
the Parliament to more vigorous and even violent action 
against the government. By the year 1643 the situation 
had become so critical that Governor Calvert sailed for 
England in order to confer with the lord proprietor. 

Cornwallis did not retain his seat in the council during 
the governor's absence ; yet Giles Brent, the governor's 
substitute, appointed him captain general, and in that 
capacity he concluded a peace with the Nanticoke Indians 
and led an expedition against the troublesome Susque- 
hannas. But toward the close of the year in which he 
performed these services there arrived from London a 
trader — Richard Ingle by name — of the piratical type. 
While this base representative of a worthy cause was 
loading his ship in the port at St. Mary's, he was arrested 
on the charge of having spoken there treasonable words 
against the king. Cornwallis seems to have thought this 
a fit opportunity for striking another blow in behalf of 
liberty and of showing his affection for the cause of Par- 
liament. Very soon after Ingle's arrest, therefore, he, 
with one of the council and one or two others, defied 
the authorities, first by causing the sheriff to release 
Ingle, and then by helping him to get safe out of the 
port. For this offence Cornwallis was brought to trial 
and fined one thousand pounds of tobacco. ^ Moreover, the 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 172, H seq. 

2 Proceedings of the Council, 1G30 to 1667, p. 167. 



20 INTRODUCTION 

feeling against him was so strong that he thons^lit host to 
leave the province and very soon went as one of Ingle's 
passengers to England, where, in trouble, he passed the 
remainder of his days. 

Tlis departure greatly diminished the military strength 
of the colony. The Susqueluinnas remained hostile. The 
government was weak, Governor Calvert being still absent, 
and the people were divided into factions. 

With affairs in this condition Claiborne felt that 
there was an opportunity for him. He therefore made 
secret visits to Kent Island and spared no means, how- 
ever unscrupulous, to incite a rebellion. For a time 
he found but few followers. (iovernor Calvert I'e- 
turned to Maryland in September, sent a small recon- 
noitring expedition to Kent Island, caused action to 
be taken for securing protection from the Indians, and 
sought in every way to restore strength to the govern- 
ment.^ 

But before he had made much headway Inglealso returned 
from England with a body of armed men with whose aid 
he easily got possession of the seat of government. That 
seizure enabled Claiborne to get control of Kent Island. 
For nearly two years the insurrection continued. The 
lord proprietor was doubt I'ul as to the recover}" of his 
province. But — although a remnant of the council 
elected Hill, a ^'irginian, governor — Ingle did not at- 
tempt to provide the })rovince with any government. 
He cared for little excci)t pillage ; and in that he and 
his party indulged without restraint. It was only natu- 
ral, therefore, that the colonists should sooner or later 
feel that they had had enough of him. And when (iov- 
ernor Calvert, who had gone to \'irginia for assistance, 
returned with some hired soldiers from that province 

' Proceedings of the Council, IG.% to 10(37, p. IGl. 



INTRODUCTION 21 

and others from Maryland, he easily regained possession 
first of St. Mary's and later of Kent Island. 

Yet both Claiborne and Ingle escaped, and the former 
had not long to wait before still another opportunity was 
afforded him for the revenge which he so strongly craved. 
At the outbreak of the civil war in England the lord pro- 
prietor was a friend of the king ; but after he learned of 
the obstinacy of the king and saw the course affairs were 
likely to take, he became more and more careful not to 
offend the Parliament. Although Governor Calvert, just 
before his death in June, 1647, had appointed Thomas 
Greene, a Catholic, as his successor, the lord proprietor 
removed Greene and intrusted the controlling power in 
the government of his province to such Protestants as 
were victorious in the mother country. It is true that 
while the new governor, William Stone, was absent in 
Virginia, Thomas Greene, whom he had appointed as his 
substitute, proclaimed Charles II as the rightful heir to 
his father's dominions ; ^ but Stone returned soon after, 
and it was thought no harm would come fi'om Greene's 
act. Tl>e first occasion of the trouble in which Maryland 
was so soon to be involved arose, not out of that act, but 
from the attitude which the Virginia Assembly had 
assumed. 

By the year 1642 a Puritan settlement in Virginia had 
become large enough for Massachusetts to send thitlier 
three ministers as missionaries.^ About the time of their 
arrival, the Virginia Assembly passed an act requiring all 
ministers to conform to the Church of England and direct- 
ing the governor and council to compel all non-conform- 
ists, upon notice, to leave the province " with all 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 16.16 to 1667, pp. 24.3, 244. 
- Wintlirop, " History of New England," Vol. II, pp. 78, 95 old ed., 
or 93, 115 new ed. 



22 INTRODUCTION 

conveniency."^ Five years later two of tlie leaders were 
ordered to go, and others followed. ^ Surely, in this gov- 
ernment King Charles I, and not his Puritan Parliament, 
had a friend ; and after the execution of that king, the 
Virginia Asseml)ly denounced the act, proclaimed his son 
rightful king, and made it treason to think or utter any- 
thing against the House of Stuart or in favor of a Puritan 
Parliament.' 

As a consequence of sucli defiance the Parliament caused 
a commission to be issued for reducing Virginia to sub- 
mission. Charges against Maryland were made at the 
same time, principally, however, by Richard Ingle of no 
" blessed memory " ; and the lord proprietor so easily re- 
futed his ciiarges that the name of his province was not 
inserted in the commission. But what Ingle did not suc- 
ceed in by open attack was accomplished by the under- 
hand measures of another; and there is little room for 
doubt that William Claiborne was solely or at least chiefly 
responsible for that measure. At any rate he succeeded 
in getting himself appointed one of the four commis- 
sioners ; and in one place the wording of the commission 
was changed so that in the place of the word " Virginia," it 
read, "all the plantations within the Bay of Chesapeake." 
The only other one of the commissioners who had much 
interest in either of the })rovinces was Richard Bennett, 
one of those Puritan leaders who, having gone out from 
Virginia, had found an asylum in INIaryland. But although 
lie had this reason to be grateful to the lord proprietor, 
he was, nevertheless, hostile to him on account of his 
Catholic faith. 

It was near the close of the year 1651 when the com- 

1 Iloninsr, Statutes at Large. Vol. I. p. 277. 

2 Winthrop, Vol. II, p. olU old ed., or 407 new ed. 
' Ilening, Vol. I, pp. 'MO, oGl. 



INTRODUCTION 23 

missioners entered upon their duties in Virginia. After 
having reduced that province to submission, they appointed 
Bennett governor and Claiborne secretary of state, and 
then proceeded to Maryland, where they arrived the last 
of March, 1652. Their first step there was to remove 
Governor Stone. And they reinstated him only after 
they had completely wiped out the lord proprietor's 
authority by naming the members of the council, by 
providing that the inhabitants should engage themselves 
to be true and faithful to the commonwealth of Eng- 
land, and by requiring that all legal processes should run 
in the name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England.^ 

Upon learning what the commissioners had done, the 
lord proprietor at once began to seek a legal remedy. 
But before he had accomplished anything along that line, 
all his efforts were needed to give the authorities in Eng- 
land tlie most weighty reasons for not uniting Virginia 
and Maryland under one government. ^ The year after 
he had presented those reasons, which well answered their 
purpose, Cromwell dissolved Parliament and caused him- 
self to be declared protector with all the authority of a 
king. Then, just as the protector acted on the theory 
that he was the successor to the crown, so the lord proprie- 
tor — his charter still remaining intact — not unnaturally 
felt that there was no reason why he should not hold his 
province under the protector as he had done under the 
late king. Accordingly, he instructed Governor Stone to 
proceed on that basis. ^ Stone obeyed. The protector un- 
doubtedly favored this course of the lord proprietor ; and 
Bennett and Claiborne, the commissioners of the late 
Parliament, had no lawful authority to interfere. 

But the Puritans who, after having retired from Vir- 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1636 to 1667, p. 271. 

2 Ibid., p. 280. 3 1^,1^1^ p. 300. 



24 INTRODUCTION 

ginia had settled in Maryland, gave trouble to the gov- 
ernor. In 1650 they had refused to send delegates to 
the Assembly, alleging as their reason for the refusal, 
that they thought that uinU'r the Puritan Parliament 
the lord proprietor's charter was endangered.^ Further 
trouble arose when they refused to obey the governor's 
order to nuirch against the Indians. Nearly 150 of 
them had signed petitions to the commissioners com- 
plaining of the governor. So, very soon after he had 
begun to administer tiie government according to the 
instructions he had received from the lord pro})rietor, 
those commissioners again came over from Virginia, and, 
.regardless of their want of authority, proceeded a second 
time to reduce the province to submission. After Gov- 
ernor Stone had rejected their offers for a peaceful settle- 
ment and threatened them with violence, a small force 
of Puritans under the command of Bennett niaiclied to 
St. Mary's, and the sui)mission wliieh they demanded was 
then obtained from tlie governor witliout tlie shedding of 
blood. The next step of the commissioners was to hand 
over the government to Captain William Fuller and nine 
others who were to serve as commissioners, or a council 
of state, under the lord protector — Bennett and Clai- 
borne directing that they should proceed as nearly as 
might be according to the laws of England, and that 
Catholics should not be permitted to vote at an election 
of delegates to serve in the legislative Assembly. ^ 

Governor Stone's account of these proceedings of Ben- 
nett and Claiborne drew from the lord proi)rietor a 
remonstrance to the protector, the effect of whicli was 
that the latter wrote a letter to Bennett commanding 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the Gtneral Assembly, l(5:)7-;]8 to 1064, 
pp. ;5-_'7, 328. 

2 Proceedings of the Council, IG.T) to 16G7, p. oil ctscq. 



INTRODUCTION 25 

that he and the other Virginians shoukl give the Mary- 
landers no further trouble. But without waiting for 
this letter, the lord proprietor rebuked Stone for sub- 
mitting with so little resistance, and directed him to 
resume the office, or else — if he were afraid to do so — 
suffer Captain Barber to be named as his successor. In 
pursuance of this direction Stone recovered possession of 
the records, and after this act had aroused the hostility 
of the Puritans he prepared for an attack upon their 
settlements. He soon had a force of about 130 men, and 
with it set out for the Severn. But when the conflict had 
been joined. Stone and his men found that they had to con- 
tend against Commissioner Fuller with about 175 men, 
who fired on their front, and also against the men of a 
merchant ship from London and a trading craft from 
New England, who fired on their rear. The result was 
that Stone was quickly defeated with heavy loss and that 
he surrendered upon promise of quarter. But as Fuller's 
Puritan honor did not require the keeping of that promise, 
a court-martial was held, and Stone and nine others were 
condemned to death. Four of the condemned were then 
shot down ; and the lives of Stone and the other four were 
spared only after the intercession of women and soldiers.^ 
For more than a year the Puritan conquerors used their 
victory in such a manner as could not fail to reflect dis- 
honor upon their names. But in the meantime the lord 
proprietor was not idle in England. On the contrary, he 
was busy urging the home government to hear and decide 
his case. After he had been kept waiting until the latter 
part of the year 1656, a decision in his favor was rendered. 
The following year articles of agreement between him 
and Richard Bennett were passed, by which the govern- 

1 Hammond, " Leah and Rachel ; or the Two Fruitful Sisters, Virginia 
and Maryland," etc. 



26 INTRODUCTION 

ment was to be fully restored to the lord proprietor.* 
Those articles were executed at the very close of the year 
1657 ; and thereafter Claiborne ceased to be a dangerous 
enemy to the lord proprietor's rights. ^ 

But less than two years later, one to whom the lord 
proprietor had by an unfortunate choice intrusted the 
office of governor became either the leader or else the 
mere instrument of a small group of men who were seek- 
ing to rob their superior of his authority. It was in July, 
1656, while the case against the Puritan commissioners 
was yet undecided, that the lord proprietor issued a com- 
mission to Captain Josias Kendall to succeed Stone, 
who was at that time in prison, as governor. ^ The new 
governor accomplished nothing until after the execution 
of the articles of agreement by which the lord proprietor 
was restored to his rights. From that time all seems to 
have gone well until the death of Oliver Cromwell in the 
year 1658. But the weakness of his son and successor, 
Richard, soon produced a state of extreme uncertainty 
with respect to the fate of the home government; and it 
may be that this was the temptation which led the men 
of Kendall's party to get possession of what power they 
could, in the hope that affairs in England might take sucli 
a turn as would enable tliem to retain what they got. 
At an)' rate, a more satisfactory explanation for their pro- 
ceedings does not appear. 

It was in the session of assembly that met on Kebrunry 
28, 1659-60, that Governor Kendall, Thomas Gerrard, 
Nathaniel Utie, — the latter two were of the council, — 
and the majority of the house of delegates struck their 

' Proceedings of the Council, 1G.3G to 1GG7, p. 3.'?2 et seq. 

2 In the year 1GS5, however, Chaiborne, in alliance with Tenn, sought 
the issue of a writ of ijuo warranto against the Maryland charter: see 
Proceedings of the Council, 1GG7 to 1G87-SS, pp. 4r>2, •ir>4, -155. 

« Proceedings of the Council, IGi'.G to 1GG7, p. 32:5 el seq. 



INTRODUCTION 27 

blow for the overthrow of the lord proprietor's power and 
attempted to make the house of delegates supreme. 
By this means a commonwealth, similar to that which had 
existed in the mother country, was to be established. . 

The delegates took the first step in these proceedings 
by informing the governor and council that they judged 
their house to constitute a lawful assembly without de- 
pendence on any other power in the province, and also 
that they judged their house to be the highest provincial 
court of judicature. Thereupon, two conferences were 
held between the governor, council and house of dele- 
gates, in the second of which Governor Fendall de- 
clared it to be his belief that by the Maryland charter 
King Charles I had intended to give the freemen or their 
deputies full power to make and enact laws without the 
lord proprietor's assent. Three members of the council — 
among whom was Philip Calvert, secretary of the province 
and brother of the lord proprietor — protested. Yet, in 
the face of that protest, the delegates, continuing as they 
had begun, informed the governor and council that they 
could no longer sit as an upper house of the Assembly, 
but that they might have seats in the Assembly, sit- 
ting as one house. It was further agreed that although 
the governor should sit as president of that house, the 
office of speaker should be continued, and the delegates 
should reserve to themselves the right of adjourning or 
dissolving the Assembly. Finally, as Governor Fendall 
surrendered his commission from the lord proprietor and 
accepted a new one from the Asserubl}^, it was not to be 
feared that he would venture to overpower the delegates 
in that body, through his right to summon to it by special 
writ any number of freemen. ^ 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1664, 
pp. 388-391. 



28 INTHODICTION 

But although these treacherous men so completely 
stripped the lord proprietor of his authority, they seem 
to have had little military force or little popular support 
with which to del'eml themselves and what they had done. 
By the time the news had reached England, C'hai-les II 
had become king. The lord proprietor, upon receiving 
the information, removed Kendall, made his brother Philip 
governor, and obtained letters from the king command- 
ing all to acknowledge and support his government, and 
directing Berkeley, the governor of Virginia, to give any 
help that might be needed.^ The new governor met 
with no resistance, Berkeley's assistance was not needed, 
and once more the lord proprietor's authority was fully 
restored. 

For the next twenty years the home government was 
too stable to be the occasion of any disturbance in the 
colonies. Moreover, in the year 16G1, Charles Calvert, 
the lord proprietor's eldest son, succeeded Philip Calvert 
as governor ; and after serving in that capacity for four- 
teen years he succeeded his deceased father as lord pro- 
prietor. With the exception of a few short intervals he 
resided in the province from the time he became governor 
until the year 1084. From the outset he had to contend 
with the renniant of that opposition which had so long 
been kept active by external agitations ; and he is to 
be given credit for keeping that renniant, during his 
residence in the province, so well under control that even 
when Bacon's rebellion, of the year 1G7G, broke out in Viv- 
ginia he (piickly (^-ushed a similar movement in his i)rov- 
ince. But his too arbitrary or too illiberal measures were 
better adapted to the mere suppression t)f an opposition than 
to the dissolving of it in a s[)irit of general good feeling. 

Also, as a conseijuenee of the grant of the i)rovince of 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1036 to 1667, pp. 392-399. 



INTRODUCTION 29 

Pennsylvania to William Penn in the year 1681 the lord 
proprietor of Maryland was confronted with one of those 
occasions in which his presence was much needed at one 
and the same time both in the province and before the 
home government. Whatever may be the prevailing 
opinion as to the character of William Penn, it is clear 
that in dealing with the Catholic lord proprietor of Mary- 
land his Quaker principles did not cause the spirit of 
brotherly love to control his actions. On the contrary, 
after his strong desire to acquire for his province the 
command of a suitable water communication with the 
ocean had made him extremely covetous of the north- 
eastern part of Maryland, he did not scruple to league 
himself with the unprincipled Duke of York, not only 
for the purpose of robbing Lord Baltimore of that part 
of his province, but even — when the duke became King 
James II — for making void the Maryland charter. 

Nowhere in that charter, except in the preamble, was 
there anything whatsoever said about the land to be con- 
tained in the grant being hactenus inculta — hitherto un- 
cultivated — and inhabited only by savages. And even 
if there had been a provision to that effect it would law- 
fully have impaired that grant but little ; for at the time 
it passed the great seal none but Indians, the Claiborne 
men, and Fleet were making their abode within it. 

It was not until the year 1(338 that the Swedes made their 
first permanent settlement within what was then the limits 
of Maryland. 1 From that time, however, they continued to 
make settlements on the west side of the Delaware River 
without receiving any attention from the Maryland au- 
thorities or being otherwise seriously disturbed until the 
year 1655, when they were subdued by the Dutch. ; Four 
years later the Maryland government endeavored to effect 

1 Archer, " The Disuiembermeut of Maryland." 



30 INTRODIC TION 

a settlement with the DiitcliJ I Jut tliis liad not been 
accomplislied wht-n King Cluirle.s II grunted to his 
brothel- James, Duke of York, all the territory extending 
from the west bank of the Connecticut to the eastern 
shore of the Delaware. Upon receiving this grant the 
duke despatched a military force with an order to reduce 
all the inhabitants of this territory to his subjection. 
And in the execution of that order the settlements west 
of the Delaware were also reduced with the result that 
the land there was claimed by the duke, even though a 
part of it was w'ithin the limits of Maryland. 

Such was the status when Peiin petitioned for his char- 
ter. While his petition was under consideration, Lord 
Baltimore's agents requested that the southern boundary 
of the proposed province should not extend south of 
Susquehanna fort, which was on the fortieth degree of 
north latitude, and, therefore, on the northern boundary 
of Maryland. Furthermore, the agents asked that a 
clause be inserted saving Lord Baltimore's rights. Al- 
though Penn found no fault with these requests, yet when 
his charter had passed the seals it was found that the only 
provision with respect to the line between Pennsylvania 
and Maryland was that the former should be bounded on 
the south "l)ya circle drawn at twelve miles distance 
from New Castle, northward and westward t«» the begin- 
ning of the fortieth degree of north latitude, and thence 
by a straight line westward." - 

As New Castle Avas afterward found to be twenty miles 
south of the fortieth degree, it became clear that Charles 
II had granted to Penn a considerable strip of territory 
which his father had previously granted to Lord P)alti- 
more. What seems to have l)een a mistake of eight miles 

1 rroceedings of the Couiuil, 10:T. to IfiOT, p. .%9 et seq. 

2 Proceedings of the Council, 10(17 to 10«7-88, pp. li72, 273. 



INTRODUCTION 31 

as to the distance of New Castle from the fortieth degree 
may have been wholly due to inaccurate geographical 
knowledge ; but the boundary provision with regard to 
the circle looks much like a device of Penn to get terri- 
tory which he knew belonged to Lord Baltimore. 

Ver}^ soon after he was in possession of his charter 
from the king, Penn obtained from the Duke of York a 
deed of enfeoffment for the land on the west side of the 
Delaware as far south as Cape Henlopen. Then, after 
first visiting the northern border of Maryland and getting 
more light on the situation of places there, he had a con- 
ference with Lord Baltimore. But at that conference he 
would not listen to Baltimore's proposal to settle the 
boundary question by taking an observation on the spot 
for locating the fortieth degree, and then accepting that 
parallel of latitude as the line between the two prov- 
inces. Listead of this he proposed tliat the northern 
boundary of Maryland should be determined by measur- 
ing two degrees of latitude due north from Watkins's 
Point, which was the southern limit of the eastern shore of 
Maryland ; this being rejected, he proposed that the for- 
tieth degree should be ascertained by accepting the old 
observation at Cape Henlopen and then by measuring 
northward ; finally, he went to such an extraordinary 
length as to propose that Lord Baltimore should move 
both his southern and his northern boundary thirty miles 
to the south in order that Pennsylvania might have an 
outlet on the Chesapeake. ^ The result was that a second 
conference closed with no prospect of an agreement. It 
began to look as if it would be necessary to lay the dis- 
pute before the home government. And although Lord 
Baltimore's presence was at this time needed in England 
because of his having incurred the displeasure of the 

1 Troceedings of the Council, 1067 to 1687-88, pp. 374-394. 



32 iNTRonrcTioN 

crown with respect to trade, and because lie liad been 
charged with neglect of Protestantism, yet it seems [»rnb- 
able that the leading purpose for whicli he sailed to Kng- 
hiiid in the year 1684 was to defend his rights in the case 
against Penn and the Duke of York. 

Moreover, it was in this particular thai the more im- 
mediate course of events turned most strongly against 
him. The Duke of York, as if to make Penn more secure 
in the possession of the land which he — without himself 
having title to it — had enfeoffed to Penn, obtained from 
his brother, the king, a grant of all the territory "between 
New Jersey and Maryland" as far south as Cape Ilenlo- 
pen. Then, soon after Lord lialtimore's arrival in Eng- 
land, the Duke became King James II. Thereafter no 
room was left for doubt as to which way the case would 
be decided. Upon ascending the throne James referre<l it 
to the commissioners of trade and plantation. It l)eing 
too early in his reign for those commissioners to think of 
offending his Majesty, they, regardless of both justice and 
facts, decided that by Lord Baltimore's charter only "land 
uncultivated and inhabited by savages " was included in 
his province, and that the land in question had been in- 
habited by Christians before, at the time of, and ever 
since the charter of Maryland was granted. On the 
basis of their decision they recommended that the east 
half of the land lying between the l)ays of Delaware and 
Chesapeake, and extending from llie latitude of ('a[)e Ilen- 
lopen north to the fortieth degree, should be adjudgt'd to 
belong to the crown. ^ The judgment was rendered as the 
commissioners recomnu'iided, and thei'eby the king was 
enabled to make Penn more secure in this part of his 
p(^ssessions. 

This was not all. The greater i)ait of the l)oundary 

• Proceedings ot the Council, 1007 to 1087-88, p. 455 el seq. 



INTRODUCTION 33 

between Maryland and Pennsylvania was yet undeter- 
mined. Lord Baltimore's charter still stood in the way 
of Penn's desire to secure possession of the head of the 
Chesapeake Bay. It is clear that the affable and wily 
Quaker was a favorite of the king, and that the latter felt 
himself to be loosely bound by the acts of his royal ances- 
tors. Add to these particulars the growing desire of the 
home government, in the interest of trade, for the more 
immediate control of the government in the colonies, and 
about the whole explanation is given for the issue of the 
writ of quo ivarranto in April, 1687, against the Mary- 
land charter.^ 

As the king sought safety in flight before judgment on 
that writ was obtained, the charter was saved from 
destruction. Penn was therefore forced either to desist 
or to resort to other action against Lord Baltimore. He 
chose the latter, and it was not until the year 1767 that 
the disputed boundary was fully determined. However, 
after the failure of the writ of quo warranto that dispute 
was very largely of the nature of a private suit between 
th-e two proprietors, and had scarcely any bearing upon 
the government of Maryland further than to cause occa- 
sional disturbances on the border. 

It was the effects of the dispute for the few years pre- 
ceding the English Revolution of 1688 that were the most 
far-reaching, because the lord proprietor was thereby kept 
away from his province at a most critical period in its his- 
tory. As already stated, Charles Calvert had only sup- 
pressed the opposition. In fact, he had suppressed it in 
such a way as to cause it to grow in strength. For, in- 
stead of being a leader of men by means of gentleness, 
sympathy, and persuasive appeal, he was cold, stern, and 
self-centred, and was not over-scrupulous as to his choice 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, p. 452 et seq. 



34 INTUODICTION 

of nieasiires for iinmediate tiiurnj>li over the opposition. 
He filled the most iinporlant ollices with the nieiiibers of 
his own family. He restricted the suffrage. He endeav- 
ored to keep the leaders of the opposition out of the 
house of delegates by trying to avoid summoning to that 
house one-half of those who had been elected. When 
that house was obstinate al)out passing some of his favorite 
bills, he called its members before him in the upper 
house, and there usually succeeded in forcing from them 
their reluctiint assent. He vetoed acts of assembly several 
years after they had been passed. Only a few years sub- 
sequent to a fall of more than fifty per cent in the price 
of Maryland tobacco, the rent on all land to be granted 
after the year 1670 was doubled. Finally, while a very 
large per cent of the people were Protestants, the govern- 
ment was kept by the proprietor under the control of 
Catholics. 

In the light of these facts, his own success in manag- 
ing the opposition, up to the time of his de[)arture for 
England in the year 1084, must be attributed in no small 
measure to weakness in the political life of the yet 
sparsely settled province. But as more than half a cen- 
tury was to elapse before political activity became strong 
and vigorous, all might have continued well for the lord 
proprietor, if he could have remained in the province or 
if he had intrusted his government during his absence to 
some faithful and able administrator. Neither of these 
alternatives, however, was to be. Before departing he 
made his son, Benedict Leonard, a minor, nominal gov- 
ernor, and divided the real authority of the ollice among 
the members of a board of do[)uty governors, at the head 
of wiiich he i)hu'ed his cousin, George Talbot, a man of 
Irish birth. > 

1 I'roceedings of the Council, 1081 to 1G8.J-8G, pp. 24()-250. 



INTRODUCTION 35 

He had not been long absent before Talbot boarded a 
vessel on which Christopher Rousby, one of his Majesty's 
collectors of customs, was carousing with the captain. A 
violent quarrel thereupon arose in which Talbot stabbed 
Rousby to the heart. The captain, refusing to surrender 
Talbot to the Maryland government for trial, carried him 
to Virginia. But after the governor and council of Vir- 
ginia had likewise refused to deliver him to the Maryland 
government, his wife, aided by two Irishmen, succeeded 
by some device in securing his releas-j from prison, and car- 
ried him back to his home. He was afterward taken and 
put in prison at St. Mary's to await orders from the king 
concerning his trial. The king directed that the Maryland 
government should deliver him to the governor and coun- 
cil of Virginia, and that that body should deliver him 
back to the captain, who should bring him to England 
for trial. He was, however, tried at James Cit}^ and found 
guilty of feloniously killing Rousby. Although he was 
pardoned by the king, yet, as the lord proprietor had 
already been heavily fined for giving Rousby trouble while 
in the discharge of the duties of his office, this whole 
affair was an unfortunate one.^ 

Nothing further of serious consequence happened until 
after a son was born to the Catholic King James H. On 
that occasion the lord proprietor was ordered by the 
king's privy council to have the birth proclaimed in his 
province, and to have days appointed there for a solemn 
thanksgiving for the " inestimable blessing." ^ The due 
execution of that order, and the consequent rejoicing of 
the Catholics over the birth of a prince to a Catholic 
king whose reign had been almost unendurable, was re- 
ceived by the Protestants of Maryland in much the same 

1 Proceedings of the Council, \(>S] to 1685-86, pp. 298-305, 475-483. 
'^Ibid., 1687-88 to 1693, pp. 40, 41, 44, 



86 INTKOIXCTION 

Spirit as similar demonstrations wci-u received by the 
Protestants of the motlier country. 

In the meantime the h)rd proprietor liad again shown 
his inability as a judt^a" of the fitness of men to govern by 
sending over William Joseph, a quaint fanatic, to succeed 
George Talbot as president of the board of deput}' gov- 
ernors. His opening address to the Assembly was an 
exposition of his idea about the divine right of kings. 
Near the opening of it he said : '• Nor ought we to be 
strangers to the end and duty for which the Divine Provi- 
dence hath ordered us thus to meet. I say Providence 
hath ordered, for there is no power but of (iod ; and the 
power by which we are assem1)led here is undoubtedly 
derived from God to the King, and from the King to His 
Excellency the Lord Pro})rietary, and from his said Lord- 
ship to Us." The remainder of what he said was devoted 
to an attempt to teach the members of the Assembly their 
duty : first, to God ; second, to the king ; third, to the 
lord proprietor ; and, f<Hirth, to themselves. The whole 
address was of the nature of a long and ridicMdous sermon, 
the spirit of which seemed calculated to stifle any thought 
of either religious or political liberty.^ 

Before the close of the day on which it was delivered a 
storm arose in the Assembly ; the immediate occasion of 
which was tliat, although the members of the lower house 
of this Assembly had at a former session taken the oath of 
fidelity to the lord proprietor, tliey were reiiuested to do so 
again. Because of their refusing they were, two days 
later, called into the upper house, where Joseph told thein 
that their action imjilie*! i-cbi'llion. and that by the laws 
of the province they were bound to take the oath under 
pain of banishment, fine, or imprisonment. But Joseph 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1684 to 1602, pp. 147- 
153. 



INTRODUCTION ^ 37 

was not so successful with this speech, as the lord proprie- 
tor had been with his on somewhat similar occasions. On 
the contrary, the lower house, on the following day, after 
first resolving that they were ready to take the oath 
according to law — but not from fear of any penalties — 
further resolved that they knew not how to satisfy the 
law and the government with respect to the oath other- 
wise or better than they had already done ; and as 
Joseph, even with the help of the council, Avas unable to 
prevail upon them, as members of the Assembly to take 
the oath for the second time, he had to let the matter pass 
after proroguing the Assembly for two days, in order that 
the same persons might be obliged to take the oath as 
ordinary citizens. There was little harmony during the 
remainder of the session ; and although the lower house 
was prevailed upon to pass a bill for a perpetual commemo- 
ration and thanksgiving on every tenth day of June for 
the birth of the prince, the government could have been 
by no means strengthened thereby. 

The crisis was now drawing near. While the above 
events were taking place in the Assembly, the Revolution 
of 1688 was in progress in the mother country ; and in 
the second month after the prorogation William and Mary 
ascended the throne of England. The lord proprietor 
was given an order to have the new monarchs proclaimed 
in his province. He immediately despatched a messenger 
to carry the order to his council. But the messenger died 
on the way and the order failed to reach its destination. ^ 
The consequence was that such a proclamation was made 
in Virginia and New England long before the Protestant 
king and queen received any official recognition in 
Maryland. 

This proved to be of great moment to the government 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1687-88 to 1603, pp. 113, 114. 



38 TNTKOIH'CTIOX 

of the province. For several years a few of tlie lord 
proprietor's enemies had now and then tried to spread a 
rumor, of their own fabrication, that the Catholics were 
forming a plot with the Indians to murder all the Protes- 
tants. The very limited int?brcourse between settlements 
in distant parts of the province made it easier to make the 
inhabitants of one settlement believe a false account of 
what was going on in another ; and, now, the failui'c of 
the lord proprietors Catholic government to recognize 
the new Protestant monarchs was just the thing needed 
by those who were endeavoring to effect an upi'ising, 
through the spread of their account of how an armed force 
of nine thousand Indians, French, and Papists were about 
to fall upon the Protestants or had already begun the 
attack. 1 It was only by the prompt and brave action of 
Henry Darnall, the alleged leader of the plot, in hurrying 
from place to place for the purpose of convincing the 
people of the falsity of the rumor, that the uprising at 
this time was quelled in its early stage. 

Kven then the enemy was neither vanquished nor dis- 
couraged. John Coode, its leading spirit, was a man of 
dash and fiery vehemence. He had lt)ng been associated 
with a traitor, Josias Fendall : iind he h;ul married a 
daughter of Thomas Gerrard, who had been a member of 
the council under Fendall. In the year lt)81, Coode had 
been arrested and tried on the charge of having joined with 
Fendall in an attempt to stir up another revolt. It was 
easy for him to be first a Catholic and then a Protestant. 
Although he had once been a clergyman, he was a vain, 
shiftless, and unprincipled man, caring nothing for Prot- 
estantism, but ardent and determined in craving revenge 
on the lord pro})rietoi-. 

After the rinuor about the (^itliolics and Imlians had 

1 rroceediiiKs ut Ihc Council, KlST-SS lo 1(11):'., p. 84. 



INTRODUCTION 39 

failed, in March, 1689, to accomplish its purpose, the opposi- 
tion, among whom were several assemblymen who had pub- 
licly averred that the rumor was false and malicious, was 
organized into what was called a Protestant Association, 
with Coode as captain of the militia. William and Mary 
still remained unrecognized by the government. The 
report was spread that the government houses were being 
fortified. Some of the Associators went in arms to inves- 
tigate. The records were first seized. Shortly after the 
deputy governors and other chief officers, who had been 
able to collect a force of only about eighty men, surrendered 
before a shot had been fired. ^ And thus the government 
changed hands without bloodshed. 

The work of the Association met with rather limited 
approval, indifference, and even opposition from many 
Protestants. But this must be attributed in part to the 
yet unawakened political life, and also to the character 
of the leader. While, on the other hand, had the lord 
proprietor's government been more liberal, and manifested 
more zeal in promoting the welfare of all, it would not 
have been in want, at this trying time, of a numerous 
body of valiant defenders. 

After the Association had gained control, the new mon- 
archs were proclaimed, an election of delegates was held 

— in some counties this was under militarj^ supervision 

— an assembly was called, and all offices were filled with 
Protestants. In a series of falsehoods mixed with a few 
grains of truth, Coode represented to the king how the 
lord proprietor had forfeited his rights, and how the Asso- 
ciation had acted only in the interest of his Majesty's 
service and the Protestant religion. ^ Later, each of the 
older counties, except Anne Arundel, sent an address to 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1G87-88 to 1693, p. 116. 

2 Rid., pp. 101-107. 



40 lNTi;()I)[CTION 

the king in support of the movement, and beseeching him 
to take the government into his own hands. Counter 
addresses, denouncing Coode and his folhnvers in strong 
terms, were also sent ; but while the foruu'r aihlresses 
had, in all, nearly 450 signatures, the latter had less than 
one-half that number.^ Finally, a committee appointed l)y 
the new Assembly represented to the crown that undi-r 
the proprietary^ government none but pa[)ists held oflice ; 
that Catholicism was encouraged while the Church of 
England was grievously neglected ; that freedom of elec- 
tions was violated, and only a select portion of those who 
had been elected delegates were summoned to serve in the 
Assembly ; that the ordinance power granted by the 
charter was exceeded ; that an \niwarranta1)le power to 
dispense with, veto, or repeal laws was exercised by the 
lord proprietor ; that excessive fees were enacted by offi- 
cers ; and that the province was governed by " crui'l. san- 
guinary, unjust, unreasonable, illegal, tyrannical acts of 
Assembly craftily obtained from the unwary representa- 
tives of the province contrary to the laws of England and 
his Lordship's charter." ^ All these charges were couched 
in exaggerated language, but they were by no means with- 
out foundation. 

It will be remembered that at the time of the flight of 
James II the quo tvarranto proceedings against the Mary- 
land charter were in progress. The termination of the 
suit, by the king's flight, left the charter unimpaired, and 
the proceedings were never resumed. Still, the restora- 
tion of a proprietary province proved to be not in accord 
with King William's i)ur})ose in aece[)ting \\\v I>nglisli 
crown. When he acce[)ted that crown he was seeking 
greater resources with which to carry on war against his 

1 rroceedings of the Council, 1087-88 lu lOlKJ, pp. 128-147. 
^ Ihid., pp.215, 210. 



INTRODUCTION 41 

old enemy, Louis XIV. He therefore had a strong desire 
not only that the colonists and colonial trade sliould be 
protected from the enemy, but also that his resources 
should not be curtailed by obstructions, in colonial ports, 
to the trade of England. For these reasons he was dis- 
posed to make the most of the least opportunity for 
changing a proprietary government to a royal one. 

In April, 1689, the king in council requested the com- 
mittee for trade and plantations to consider what course 
would be most advisable to pursue with the proprietary 
provinces of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Carolina in order 
to provide for the better defence of the colonial possessions 
against the enemy. Tlie same month that committee 
recommended that Parliament should take up the question 
of making those provinces more immediately dependent 
on the crown ; and one month later it particularly urged 
that this should be done in the case of Maryland. ^ 

Before anything of this kind had been done, however, 
there came from Maryland the several addresses telling 
what the Protestant Associators had done, and it is need- 
less to say that the king and his advisers approved of 
their deeds. Furthermore, only a little later, while the 
attorney general was considering what might be done in 
the case, another letter came from Coode stating that some 
papists, confederates of one of the late deputy governors, 
had murdered John Payne, another of his Majesty's col- 
lectors of customs while in the discharge of the duties of 
tliat oliice.2 Then, too, there came at this time the news 
of how the Indians of Canada, instigated by the French, 
had made a raid into New York and massacred the inhab- 
itants of Schenectady. 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1687-88 to 1003, p. 100. 

2 Instead of being in the discharge of the duties of the office of king's 
collector, he was, at the time he was killed, acting as a captain under a 
warrant from Coode. 



42 iNTiioDrrTioN 

In tlie light of these accounts from America, Lord 
Cliief Justice Holt, in June, 1G!>0, rrave tlie following 
opinion: "1 think it had been l^etter if an in(iuisition 
had been taken, and the forfeitures committed Ijy the 
Lord Baltimore had been therein found before any grant 
be made to a new governor. Yet since there is none, and 
it being in a case of necessity, I think the King may by 
his commission constitute a governor whose authority will 
be legal, though he must be responsible to tlie Lord Balti- 
more for the profits. If an agreement can be made with 
the Lord Baltimore, it will be convenient and easy tor the 
governor that the King shall a[)point. An iiupiisition 
may at any time be taken if the forfeiture be not par- 
doned, of which there is some douljt." ^ 

Tlie next important move was taken on August 21, 
IGUO, when it was ordered in council that the attorney 
general should forthwith proceed by scire facias against 
Lord Baltimore's charter in order to vacate the same. 
He, accordingly, proceeded on the ground that the seiz- 
ure of the government into the king's hand was the only 
means of preserving the province. And after Lord Balti- 
more and his counsel on the one side, and Coode and 
Cheseldyne — the latter having been speaker of the late 
low<ir house of Assembly — on the other side, had been 
given a hearing before the committee for trade and planta- 
tions, the government of the province was taken entirely 
away from Lord Baltimore, without, however, depriving 
him of his territorial rights. 

The royal government was well established by the 
middle of the year 1692, and for the next twenty-three 
years ALaryland was administered as a royal province. 
During that period the officers that had hitiierto been 
appointed and instructed by the proprietor were appointed 

1 Proceedings of the Coiuicil, KIST-SS to Kil).'}, p. 185. 



INTRODUCTION 43 

and instructed by the croAvn ; laws that were passed by 
the General Assembly were subject to the crown's dissent; 
and writs and legal processes ran in the name of the king. 
Although the old offices and the old legislative and ad- 
ministrative forms were, in tlie main, preserved, neverthe- 
less this was a time in which a heavy and effective blow 
was given to the hitherto rather absolute government of 
the province, and a step that was long and full of conse- 
quence was taken toward popular government. The 
English Revolution of 1688 had transferred the sovereign 
power in the home government from the king to the 
houses of Parliament, and, consequently, extended in no 
small measure the " privileges, franchises, and liberties " 
of British subjects. The Maryland Revolution of the fol- 
lowing year resulted, for the inhabitants of that province, 
in a security of their rights as British subjects that proved 
to be far more effective than it had formerly been. By 
the two revolutions, therefore, the rights of the people of 
Maryland were not only much extended, but they were better 
secured. The manner of electing and summoning delegates 
to serve in the legislative Assembly was no longer deter- 
mined by an ordinance of the lord proprietor, or of his 
governor and council, but by a legislative enactment. 
Never again was a county - — the unit of representation in 
the lower house of that Assembly — erected by executive 
ordinance, but only by act of Assembly. The lower house 
effectively denied that a new office could be created witli- 
out its assent. The legislature, and not the governor and 
council alone, determined for a time the fees of officers. 
The administration of justice was to some extent decen- 
tralized. The Church of England was established by act 
of assembly. In attempting to separate the territorial 
from the governmental relations, the strength of feudal 
custom was weakened, Avhercby the land office ceased to 



44 INTRODUCTION 

be so nint'li a piivale possession of the proprietor and 
became more public in nature. 

The proprietor having become a Protestant, the govern- 
ment was i-estored to him in the year 1715. But as the 
hiws and tlie precedents made in the royal period survived, 
the powers of lord proprietor and people at the beginning 
of the Restoration were far more equally balanced than 
they had been before the Revolution of 1<JMI. After the 
Restoration the lord proprietor had to contend with a 
political power that was developing within, rather than 
with hostility that was excited from without. Several 
years of industrial depression, and an attempt of the lord 
proprietor to deny that the statutes of the mother country 
extended to his province, keenly awakened the political 
feeling of the people, whose numbers had increased with 
the growth of years and caused the contradictions of the 
charter with respect to the pro[)rietor's powers and the 
people's rights to become more fully realized. 

Scarcely had the controversy with respect to English 
statutes ended in victory for the people's representatives 
when, about 1735, a iuarki-d industrial movement began. 
Hitherto, nearly all the people of the province had been 
engaged in the raising of tobacco, and their plantations 
lay, for the most part, along the banks of rivers or the 
shore of the bay, with little communication, exce[)t by 
water, between them. But now, as the remoter parts of 
the province began to be settled, wheat was raised, roads 
were cleared, bridges were built, towns sprang up, and the 
facilities for social and commercial intercourse were thereby 
greatly increased. At the same time the extremes of so- 
cial condition rapidly diverged. So, by the middle of the 
eighteenth century, social pressure had risen far above 
that of the previous century, and the pulse of political 
life beat with vioror. Final! v. the subversion of feudal 



INTRODUCTION 45 

customs during the period of royal government caused 
the proprietor to meet with stronger opposition to what 
he claimed as his territorial rights ; and this very opposi- 
tion was a leading force in animating the strengthened 
political life and inspiring it to resist and to attack the 
government with such effect that the people of Mar3'land 
were at last permitted to enjoy the most of their rights as 
British subjects, regardless of all powers granted by the 
charter to the lord proprietor. 



PART I 
TERRITORIAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 



CHAPTER I 

LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 

Had the military features of the old system of land 
tenure been preserved at the time of the founding of 
Maryland, the administration of the land office might have 
been the controlling force in the entire proprietary system ; 
but, as it was, the military element in the feudal S3'stem 
had disappeared, and the only variety of tenure in Mary- 
land was free and common socage, the obligations of 
which were fealty and rent, and its liability, escheat. 
Primogeniture took no strong root in the province. The 
attempts of priests to secure vast tracts of land for the 
church were thwarted by the introduction, at the instance 
of the lord proprietor, of the principle of the English 
statute of mortmain. 

Nevertheless, the system was essentially unlike any- 
thing in use in modern times. As in all medieeval fiefs, 
both ownership of the soil and jurisdiction in everything 
pertaining to the territory were originally vested in the lord 
proprietor. With that ownership and that jurisdiction 
went extensive rights and privileges ; and not only did 
those rights and privileges begin to suffer curtailment long 
before the final overthrow of the proprietary system, — 
thereby weakening that system at a vital point, — but by 
his effort to preserve them the lord proprietor provoked the 
opposition to more vigorous attacks on his governmental 
rights. A study of the land system, or of Maryland as a 
E 49 



60 MARYLAND AS A I'liUl'KIETARY I'KUVINCE 

fief, is tlierefore an essential part of the study of tlie entire 
proprietary system. 

Under the proprietary regime the granting of land and 
the regulation of its settlement were primarily functions 
not of township, county, or the General Assembly, but 
originally they were entirely those of the lord proprietor, 
who performed them, or directed the performance of 
them, through tiie issue of ordinances and instructions. 
All oOieers to whom the lord proprietor delegated any of 
his territorial jurisdiction were by him appointed and 
*kept subject to removal at his pleasure. 

Before the first colonists had left England the proprie- 
cor had given out his first conditions of plantation, and 
agreed therein to grant or cause to be granted two thou- 
sand acres to every adventurer who should take into the 
province in the year 1633, for the purpose of settlement 
there, five men between the ages of sixteen and sixty. 
For taking into the province any number of persons less 
than five the adventurer was to receive a grant of one hun- 
dred acres for each one between the ages of sixteen and 
sixty, and fifty acres for every child under the age of 
sixteen. The annual rent in every case was to be ten 
pounds of good wheat for every fifty acres. For transport- 
ing five persons into the province after the first year only 
one thousand acres were to ])e granted, and the rent was 
also to be higher.^ All former conditions were revoked 
or amended with each new and successive issue that 
appeared in 1641, 1648, 1649, and 1658. The last of 
these were, in later years, several times modified ; and 
from the earliest times the proprietor often gave special 
terms, in the form of special warrants, as an encourage- 
ment or favor to particular persons. In 1683 the actjuir- 
ing of right to land by transporting persons into the 

1 Proceedings of the Council. 1636 to 1CG7, pp. 47, 48. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 51 

province ceased, and thereafter title could be acquired 
only after the payment of caution, or purchase money, the 
regular rate of which was at first fixed at one hundred 
pounds of tobacco for every fifty acres.^ 

Any person entitled to land by the conditions of planta- 
tion was in the first place required to record his right or 
rights in the secretary's office ; as, " Came into the prov- 
ince January 12, 1637, Captain Robert Wintour, who trans- 
ported Richard B., A. W., J. S., B. P., T. W.— G. T. a 
boy aged fifteen years." ^ The recording of such rights 
was either accompanied or followed by demands for the 
amount of land due ; and such demands were sooner or 
later followed by a warrant of survey signed by either the 
governor or the secretary and directed to the surveyor 
general. After the survey had been made by the sur- 
veyor, a certificate, signed by the surveyor general, was 
returned to the office where its contents were inserted in 
a patent which was passed by the governor in the name 
and under the seal of the lord proprietor. ^ The patent or 
grant was of the nature of a deed, and gave the consid- 
eration for wliich the grant was made, the description 
of the grant as found in the certificate of survey, and, 
finally, the conditions of tenure. 

Such in the early years were the essential steps in the 
process of acquiring title to land, but the business was 
made much less simple by many attendant proceedings, 
such as securing proof of rights, the sale of rights, peti- 
tions, caveats, and resurveys.^ 

Occasionally, when there was a strong desire to encour- 
age settlement in a particular district, such as one near a 
disputed boundary line, authority was vested in some 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1G67 to 1687-88, p. 394 et seq. 

2 Kilty, "The Landholder's Assistant," p. 67. 

3 Ibid., pp. 70-73. * Ibid., pp. 89-91, 133 et seq. 



52 MARYLAND AS A IMtorill ICTAKY I'KOVINCE 

person or commission in tliiit locality to prove rights 
and to issue warrants of survey returnable to the secre- 
tary's olhce.^ With such exceptions all land business 
proceeded directly from St. .Mary's, or later from Annapo- 
lis as the .seat of government. 

After the granting of land had continued for several 
years, a considerable variety of holdings appeared. 

The most common of these was the ordinary freehold 
which was held, nominally of some one of the proprietor's 
manors, subject to the payment to the proprietor of an 
annual rent and, after 1658, a line, equal to one year's rent 
for every alienation of it.^ 

During the administration of Cecilius, the first lord pro- 
prietor, from lb82 to 1675, authority was given by him for 
the erection into a manor of any grant containing one thou- 
sand acres or more. Before 1<)T6 about sixty manor.s, 
averaging a little less than three thousand acres each, had 
been erected for others than those of the lord proprietor's 
own household. However, with the accession of Charles, 
the second lord proprietor, in 1675, the erection of manors 
almost ceased. 

A manor differed from a mere freehold in that it was 
given a name, and in that the grantee was allowed to hold 
court-baron and court-leet, and have all fines and profits 
Ixdonging thereto. Further, the early grants of manors 
gave the grantee the advowsons of churches and unre- 
stricted privileges of hunting for any game.-'' The court- 
baron was given jurisdiction over civil cases in which the 
damages did not exceed a fine of forty shillings, while 
the court-leet took cognizance of criminal offences com- 
mitted within the precincts of the manor. To what extent 

1 Proceeclinf,'s of the Council. 1636 to 16()7. p. 4G9, 

2 Land-office Records, Liber 1, folio 54. 
' I hid., folio 4;] ct seq 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 53 

such courts were held, there remains no evidence except 
the records of a court-baron held on St. Gabriel's Manor 
in the year 1656, and the records of a few sessions of both 
court-baron and court-leet held on St. Clement's Manor 
between the years 1659-72.1 The records of the latter 
manor show that it had its steward, constable, and bailiff, 
and that a jury of twelve men, after hearing the charges 
or complaints, made its presentments, often fixing the 
fines, and occasionally referring the matter to the gov- 
ernor of the province. If the fine imposed by the jury 
was thought to be too excessive, it might be revised by 
affeerors sworn for that purpose. 

Only in the grants of the first three manors was any 
portion of the land set apart as demesne land, that is, 
land which was not to be granted out in tenancy nor in 
any way severed or aliened from the said manor. The 
grant of a manor, like that of a freehold, subjected the 
grantee to the payment to the proprietor of the annual 
rent, and the fine for every alienation. 

In 1665 the proprietor issued instructions directing that 
in every county at least two manors, containing not less 
than six thousand acres each, be surveyed and set apart 
for his private use.^ Each of these proprietary manors 
was placed in charge of a steward, who leased it in parcels 
to tenants usually for three lives, or for a long term of 
years, at a rent seldom exceeding ten shillings per hundred 
acres. Owing to failure to preserve the bounds of them, 
these manors much dwindled in size or, in some cases, 
entirely vanished ; while such portions of them as were 
preserved suffered from shameful neglect by poorly paid 
and incompetent stewards. As a consequence, the bounds 

1 Bozman, II, p. 581; Mayer, "Ground Rents in Maryland," pp. 
151-157. 

2 Kilty, pp. 95-98. 



64 MARYLAND AS A I»U()1'1:1L:TAUV TUOVINCE 

between tenements could not be found, leases were lost, 
and the rents not paid.^ 

In addition to tlie proprietary manors, the proprietor 
made several otlier reserves for the purpose of conlining 
surveys and settlements to those parts of the province in 
which it was desired that they should be made, or be- 
cause of the appearance of copper or otlier ore, the extraor- 
dinary fertility of the soil, or the contiguity to towns. 
Although portions of such reserves were leased, yet none 
of them were surveyed, laid out, and named as the manors 
were.^ 

In 17G6 the proprietor appointed a commission to sell 
his manors and reserves ; ^ and although the sale of them 
was somewhat slow, yet nearly fifty thousand acres were 
sold in seven years, and this meant that the proprietary 
lands corresponding to those of the lord's demesne in the 
mediaeval fief were to disappear.* 

Land from which grants were made according to the 
conditions of plantation became known as vacant land, and 
was left uncultivated. A considerable quantity of this 
remained in nearly all parts of the province down to the 
final overthrow of the pi-oprietary government. But it 
had been the practice to locate under land warrants by 
selecting the most rich and fei-tile land without regard to 
the regularity of its area or making it in any way coincide 
with the boundary of land previously granted. There- 
fore, especially in the older counties, the most of what 
came to be left of this vacant land was not only the poor- 

1 Calvert Tapers, No. 2, pp. 70, 83, 89 ; Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. 
II, p. 02. 

2 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 420 ct seq. 

3 Council Records, February 21. 1700. 

* Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, pp. 33-3, 392 ; Table of Sales, 
Maryland Hist. Soc. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 55 

est in quality, but it lay in such small irregular parcels as 
to be of but little value. ^ 

Although the lord proprietor or his officers made the 
rules according to which surveys were made, yet in after 
years it was found that the amount of land included in 
many of the early certificates of survey exceeded what it 
had been intended to grant. Such excess became known 
as surplus land ; and it arose from the surveyor's practice 
of stating the distance from one boundary — such as a 
river, a creek, a tree, or an artificial mark — to another 
on erroneous measurement, or by estimate without any 
measurement at all.^ Although the grants read " more or 
less " with respect to quantity, yet that expression was 
interpreted by Charles, the second proprietor, to " extend 
to ten in the hundred, over or under, and no more ; " ^ 
while by later proprietors the words " more or less " were 
entirely disregarded.* 

In order to recover what he claimed as his just dues 
from such surplus, the proprietor instructed his surveyor 
general to make search and inquiry for the same, and, 
later, he offered a reward for its discovery. Whenever 
any was found, he caused a resurvey to be made in order 
to ascertain the quantity. Then, for a time, all that was 
necessary was to ask the grantee to take up the surplus 
according to the terms stated in the conditions of planta- 
tion that were in force either at the time of the original 
grant or at the time of the discovery of the surplus. But 
the time was not long in coming when the proprietor 
found that stronger measures were needed to accomplish 
his end. Accordingly, he had it proclaimed that any 
grant found to contain surplus should be vacated if the 
grantee did not apply for a warrant of resurve}^ and take 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 53 ot scq. ^ Kilty, p. 196. 
^Ihid., pp. 113, 114. 4 jj^pi^ pp_ 200-201 ; C. R., June 14, 1733. 



56 MATvYLAND AS A PROPKIETAUY PROVINCE 

Up all sueli surplus on tei'iiis uained by liini.^ Hut, even 
then, although Charles, the second proprietor, during his 
presence in the province, doubtless received a consid- 
erable return for surplus land, during the period of royal 
government laws were made for limiting the power of the 
proprietor in that particular ; and although after the res- 
toration of the proprietar}' government a similar law was 
lost by the lord proprietor's veto, resolutions of the lower 
house, together with looseness in the description of the 
original grants, destroyed the effect of those proclama- 
tions which were issued to secure the proprietor's right to 
surplus land.^ 

All land within the province, held as it was by socage 
tenure, was liable to escheat — an ancient term to which 
the proprietor gave a broad interpretation. The number 
of escheats found in the records is large, and there were 
many ways in which land might fall back, or escheat, to 
the proprietor, the most common of which were lack of 
heirs and non-payment of rent.^ 

The mode of proceeding, however, in respect to land 
alleged to be escheated, seems, during the early years of 
the colony, to have been fair and cautious. Whenever a 
person conceived any land to be escheatable, he presented 
a petition to the proper tribunal, })raying that a manda- 
mus might issue for the summoning of a jury to ascertain 
and declare on oath whether the land was escheated or 
not, and, if so, by what means. If the mandamus were 
issued, it was to the sheriff of the county in which the 
land in question lay, commanding him to summon and 
swear a jury of the neighborhood for the purpose stated in 

1 Kilty, pp. 200-204 ; C. K., Juno 14, 17.^3. 

2 Lower House Journal, June 1, 17.3!) ; Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, 
p. 37 et seq. 

8 Kilty, p. 173 ct seq. ; see also Calvert Papers, No. 1, pp. 291, 297. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 57 

the petition, and to make due return of their inquisi- 
tion and verdict. If, tlien, tlie provincial court, in view 
of the inquisition and verdict of tlie jury, decided that 
the land had escheated, tlie petitioner might apply for a 
warrant to resurvey it for his own benefit ; and after the 
resurvey was made, and he had paid for the same, he 
learned on what terms he might acquire title. After the 
suspension of the proprietary government in 1689, the 
former regulation governing escheats was superseded by 
a much more arbitrary one ; for the proprietor's chief 
agent, thinking that favorable terms were not to be 
expected under the newly established order of things, 
adopted the plan of selling land as escheats, without any 
condemnation or preparatory form. Out of this plan grew 
the established custom by which, if any one thought land 
to be escheatable for want of heirs, he might, and often 
did, venture the expense of a warrant and a survey, and 
then paid the price required to acquire title thereto. Title 
acquired in this way was good so long as suit was not 
brought by a claimant, and the land was proved not to be 
an escheat. 

Not later than 1733 the proprietor began to encourage 
tlie discovery of land which had escheated, by offering to 
give one-third of it to the discoverer of any such, and the 
first chance to purchase the remaining two-thirds. But 
toward the close of the proprietary period the number of 
escheat warrants much decreased, while the weakness of 
the justices of the provincial court and the alert opposi- 
tion of the lower house seriously threatened to strip the 
proprietor of all benefit from this ancient right. ^ 

On the side of ownership, then, it is clear that before 
the American Revolution most of the essentials of a fief 

1 Gil more Papers ; Proprietary Papers ; see also Proceedings of the 
Council, 1087-88 to 1693, pp. 102, 215, 219. 



58 MARYLAND AS A I'HOPRTETAKV PROVINCE 

had lost their force in Maryland. The proprietary manors 
and reserves, — corresponding lo the lord's demesne of tlie 
mediieval fief, — after a long period of un])rolitable man- 
agement of the former, were both gradually disappearing 
by a slow process of sale. The proprietor was unable, 
after the year 1738, to enforce his claim to surplus land, 
while his benefit from the disputed right to escheated land 
was doubtful. The attempt to erect manors for the largest 
tenants, and thereby to create a nobility on which he might 
rely for support, was given up before the close of the 
seventeenth century. Everything was, therefore, nearly 
levelled to the simple freehold from wliieh tlie projirietor 
continued to receive his rents and some alienation tines. 

So long as the province remained a true fief, the lord pro- 
prietor's territorial jurisdiction, and hence the land office, 
was for the most part his own private affair ; and such was 
the status until the Revolution of 1(389. I>ut during the 
period of royal government the fief received shocks from 
which it recovered only in part after tlie restoration of 
the proprietary government. Territorial jurisdiction, or 
the organization and administration of the land office, 
was therefore divided into three periods. 

At the beginning of the first period and for several 
years thereafter nearly all business relating to land was 
attended to by the governor, council, aud secretary. The 
governor was directed to pass all grants under the great 
seal, while the secretary was to record tliem. Hotli gov- 
ernor and secretary were to attend to the collection of 
rents, but sheriffs and the attorney general were soon 
asked to assist. Before the first colonists left England the 
lord proprietor had appointed a surveyor, but his commis- 
sion does not appear in the records. For a time tlie sec- 
retary was the surveyor and had one or more deputies 
under him. In ItUl occurred the first api)oiMtmeu1; of 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 59 

a surveyor general, whose office was somewhat of the 
nature of tlie steward of an Ensrlish manor. Durinfr 
the first period he was always a member of the council 
of state, and was not so much expected to make surveys 
as to appoint surveyors and control their work. Until 
the appointment of an examiner general, in 1685, he 
signed the certificates of survey, and in 1658 his signa- 
ture began to appear on all grants. In 1G71 lie was 
instructed to hold courts of inquiry once a year in each 
county for examining titles by which land was held, and 
for ascertaining whether any one possessed more land 
than was his due, and what rent ought to be paid ; all in- 
formation thus gained he was to enter in a book, make 
two copies of the same, send one to the proprietor and 
the other to the receiver general.^ In 1670 the secretary 
was instructed to prove all rights to land ; to inquire 
after, properly describe, and record all escheats ; to enter 
clearly on record all the proprietary manors and reserves ; 
to prepare a rent-roll, diligently to search all conceal- 
ments of any of the proprietor's rents, and give notice of 
any such concealments to the proprietor and the governor ; 
to give special attention to procuring the payment of 
alienation fines, and to have a list of alienations recorded. ^ 
In response to the proprietor's desire to have a list of 
escheats with the quantity, quality, and estimated value 
of each, the governor, in 1673 and earlier, directed each 
sheriff to return a list for his county.^ Probably as early 
as 1671, and surely not later than 1676, the proprietor 
appointed two receivers general of his rents and other 
dues, and authorized them to appoint deputies.* In 1678 

1 Proceedings of the Council, KiO? to 1687-88, p. 94 et seq. 

2 Ibid, p. 73 et seq. 

8 Calvert Papers, No. 1, pp. 291, 297 ; Proceedings of the Council, 10G7 
to 1087-88, p. 122. 

* Proceedings of the Council, 1071 to 1081, p. 119 et seq. 



60 MARYLAND AS A PKOl'HIETA It V PROVINCE 

the lord proprietor issued a proclamation ordering the 
justices of each county court to comnumd the clerk of 
their court to transmit to the secretary's office a complete 
list of alienations of land within his county in order that 
the secretary and the receiver general might be able to 
make a complete rent-roll. ^ 

The records show that with the year 1070 there began 
a decided increase of business activity in territorial 
affairs, and an earnest desire of the proprietor or his son, 
the governor, to increase the revenue. One consequence 
of such increased activity was doubtless the erection, in 
1680, of a distinct land office. The secretary's chief 
clerk, under the designation of clerk and register, was 
placed in charge of this new office. He was intrusted 
with the care of the records, and autliorized to prove 
rights, issue land warrants, and diaw U[) grants for the 
same. Four years later, just before leaving the province, 
to which he never returned, diaries, lord proprietor, 
created a land council of four meml)ers, all of whom were 
members of the council of state. This new and special 
council he authorized to hear and determine all matters 
relating to land that should be brought before it. Me 
also authorized two of its members, the secretaries of the 
province, to issue land warrants, and one of the secre- 
taries with one of the other members to sign all grants. 
He gave the entire council instructions in matters relat- 
ing to escheats, surveying, rent, leases, caveats, sur}>lus 
land, issuing and recording grants, and grants illegally 
or surreptitiously obtained. ^ 

Before the close of the first period, therefore, the land 
business had become thoroughly organized in what was 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1071 to KiSl. ]i\). l;V.l, ICO. 

2 Kilty, pp. 108-117 ; Proceedings of the Oouiicil, Ui81 to U!8J-8(?, pp. 
254-2C0. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 61 

chiefly a private office of the lord proprietor, which office 
held jurisdiction over the keeping of the records, over 
everything pertaining to title to land, and over the col- 
lection of the revenue arising thereon. 

The land council continued to transact its business until 
1689, when the land office was closed and not reopened 
until 1691. During this interval, however, Henry Dar- 
nall, a cousin of the proprietor, and who, at the outbreak 
of the Revolution, was one of the deputy governors, a 
member of the council of state, a member of the land coun- 
cil, the receiver general, and the leader of what military 
resistance could be raised against the rebellion, was faith- 
ful and diligent as the proprietor's agent in protecting, so 
far as he was able, the proprietary interests. In 1695 he 
was not only continued as agent and receiver general, but 
also had conferred on him, so far as the proprietor was 
able to do so, all the powers and duties which had formerly 
been vested in the land council.^ In 1712, Darnall having 
died, Charles Carroll, who for some time had been the 
proprietor's able solicitor and his register in the land 
office, was appointed successor to Darnall, and not only 
given all power necessary to make a firm stand for the 
proprietary rights, but also most liberally rewarded for 
his services.^ 

The commissions to Darnall and Carroll show that the 
proprietor continued to regard the land office, as estab- 
lished in 1681, entirely in the light of his own private pos- 
session. But wlien the royal government was established, 
that question was much fought over by the proprietor, 
his agent, and his solicitor on the one side, and the gov- 
ernor and council, the secretary, and the legislative Assem- 
bly on the other. The governor and council granted 
numerous petitions for a resurvey, and assumed much 

1 Kilty, pp. 127, 128. '^ Ibid., pp. 128-133. 



G2 MAi:VLAM> AS A I'Uori: IICTA i:v puovince 

of that riglit of judging and deciding disputes in land 
affairs which had formerly been vested in the land coun- 
cil.^ The contentious secretary, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 
claimed the custody of all papers which were evidences of 
land titles ; and he also claimed the right to issue war- 
rants for survey and to receive the fees paid therefor. He 
even refused to allow the proprietor's agent to search the 
records before paying the ordinary fee. The governor, 
council, and assembly supported the secretary's claim to 
the custody of the records on the ground that the people 
interested and concerned therein should have access to 
them for ins])ection ; and it was finally settled that the 
records should remain in the secretary's ollice, but that the 
proprietor's agent should have access to them free of 
charge for the purpose of amending the rent-roll. ^ But 
when the secretary still insisted on receiving one-half the 
fees for land warrants, the proprietor raised tlie purchase 
money on every hundred acres from 240 to 480 pounds of 
tobacco.^ Such an increase of purchase money was equiva- 
lent to a change of the conditions of plantation, and as a 
consequence the legislative Assembly asked that the condi- 
tions of jtlaiitation and the proprietor's instructions to his 
agent should be made pul»lic. Then, too, the proprietor's 
claim to surplus land, and the vast amount of litigation 
between i)arties possessing adjacent tracts, caused much 
attention to be called to the incorrectness and carelessness 
with which surveyors had run their lines. It was easy, 
therefore, to raise a general complaint, charge the proprie- 
tor's surveyors with negligence and incompetence, and to 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1087-88 to 1(59.3, pp. 825, 340, 356, 389- 
397 ; Proceedings and Acts of tlie General Assembly, 1GS4 to 1692, p. 319 
et sfq. 

2 Kilty, p. 162; Proceedings of the Council, 1687-88 to 1093, pp. 350, 
363, .387, 423; C. R., October 12, 1090. 

8L. II. J., September It. 1704. 



LAKD AND THE LAND OFFICE 63 

assert that they were public officers.^ Laws were accord- 
ingly passed for obliging the proprietor to publish his con- 
ditions of plantation and his instructions to his agent, for 
obliging surveyors to qualify according to law, and for 
ascertaining the bounds of land. 

The result, then, of the contention during the second 
period in the development of the land office over the ques- 
tion of what were its public and what its private relations, 
indicated that the settlement of judicial questions relating 
to title, the custody of the record of titles, and some con- 
trol over surveying were public, while little more than 
those most essential for securing the legitimate revenue 
were private in nature. This meant that the proprietor 
was no longer to be regarded as the absolute lord of a fief, 
but that with the exception of his having a few extra and 
unusual sources of income (and even the right to those 
was already disputed) he was only the chief landholder 
within the province. 

Immediately after the restoration of the proprietary 
government a new commission was issued to Carroll, ap- 
pointing him " chief agent, escheator, naval officer, and 
receiver general of all our rents, arrears of rents, fines, 
forfeitures, tobaccos, or monies for land warrants; of all 
ferrys, waifs, strays, and deodands ; of all duties arising 
from or growing due upon exportation of tobacco afore- 
said, tunnage of ships, and all other monies, tobaccos, or 
other effects," and also authorizing him " to sell or dis- 
pose of all lands, tenements, or hereditaments to us now 
escheated or forfeited. "^ Although there was no power 
conferred by this commission that the agent might not 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1G87-88 to 1693, p. 396 ; Upper House 
Journal, November 9, 1709; L. H. J., May 10, 1695, May 1, 9, 11, Sep- 
tember 2.3, 1696, May 31, 1697, July 8, 1699, December 6, 1704, May 15, 
1705, April 5, 6, 11, 1706, April 9, 11, 12, 1707. 

2C. R., July 10, 1716. 



64 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

have formerly exercised, yet Governor Hart, by nature 
shallow and irritable, was made furious when he learned 
that the new Protestant proprietttr had permitted a strong 
influential Catholic to retain so much power. He told the 
Assembly that he must resign if Carroll retained the com- 
mission, since his own power would be too much weakened 
by the insufficient number of offices remaining at his dis- 
posal with which to reward those faithful to the proprie- 
tor's interest.^ The Assembly, supporting the governor, 
held that the offices of escheator general, naval officer, and 
receiver general required the holder or holders thereof to 
take the oath ; that the office of escheator general was one 
of record and related to the administration of justice ; and 
that no private employee of the proprietor should receive 
the fines imposed by acts of assembly. Accordingly, the 
two houses of assembly sent a joint petition to the pro- 
prietor, praying that the governor be restored to full 
power. 2 This action of the governor and Assembly,, 
rather than the commission, must have enlarged Carroll's 
idea of his power and persuaded him to think of himself 
as the first officer of the province ; for he at once took it 
upon himself to fix the salary of the governor and to 
advise him not to give his assent to some bills that were 
awaiting his signature.^ Carroll seems to have retained 
his powers as agent, but he was not continued as register 
of the land office ; and instead of becoming the first officer 
of the province, the importance of the office of agent was 
greatly reduced between 1717 and 1733 by the law, existing 
during that interval, which gave an equivalent for the 
proprietor's quit-rents and alienation fines by imposing an 
export duty on tobacco. 

When the law expired in 1733, the importance of the 

1 U. H. J.. July 20, ITK?. - IhUl. July :50, 1710. 

•^ I hill. Auuust. 0. 1710. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 65 

office of agent revived, but none of the successors of Darnall 
and Carroll were men of such diligence and faithfulness ; 
and the private interests of the proprietor, apart from the 
receipt of the tobacco duty, were so completely neglected 
during the continuance of that law that they never fully 
recovered. The rent-rolls fell into confusion by disuse, 
the bounds of proprietary manors were encroached on, 
and the complaint was raised that the tenants on those 
manors seldom paid their dues.^ In the effort to restore 
order, the governor was instructed to assist and advise 
with the agent in farming the quit-rents or appointing 
receivers. The governor was also to appoint rent-roll 
keepers to whom -the quit-rent farmers should be obliged 
each year to return the rent-rolls ; and with the advice of 
the agent he was to lease the proprietor's manors and re- 
served lands and appoint such stewards or other officers as 
should be thought convenient. ^ But the work was diffi- 
cult, and in 1733 the governor wrote that the trouble about 
land affairs was ten times as great as that about all other 
matters whatever.^ In 1737 the negligent management 
of the agent appeared from the fact that he was unable to 
find some of the proprietor's instructions to him ; while 
the activity of the lower house appeared in its investi- 
gation of numerous charges of extortion against farmers 
and receivers of the rents.* In 1745 the governor yielded 
to the request of the lower house for an account of the 
proprietor's income from quit-rents.^ 

While the publicity thus increased, the confusion and 
neglect continued ; and in 1764 the secretary bitterly 
complained that, owing to loss of deeds and copies of 
leases, the proprietoi', in trials at law, suffered heavy 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 2, pp. 79, 83. * L. H. J., May 4, 1737. 

2 C. R., June 18, 1733. 5 /ftjv;_ September 10, 1745. 

3 Calvert Papers, No. 2, pp. 89, 90. 

F 



C() JMAKVLANI) AS A l'K( »l'i; I KTA k V I'UOVINCK 

loss from defeat.^ None of tlie a<^ents was so delinquent 
as David Lloyd. At one time the secretary wrote that 
the proprietor had heard nothing from Lloyd for fourteen 
months. On different occasions the governor also wrote 
how Lloyd was at one time £8000 behind in his remit- 
tances ; of the proprietor's loss on account of Lloyd's 
unmethodical way of doing business ; and how Lloyd, liv- 
ing so far away on his own vast estate, was hardly able to 
attend to the proprietor's business.^ Frederick, who was 
at that time the proprietor, a conceited voluptuai'v and 
spendthrift, bitterly complained of the ignorance in which 
he was kept by his agent with respect to his business in- 
terests in Maryland, and at one time declared his inten- 
tion of visiting the province in order to seek relief from 
the financial loss and the humiliating embarrassment in 
which he was placed as a consequence of his inability to 
answer business and social incjuiries made by parties in 
England.^ For a long time he desired that Lloyd would 
resign, but from fear of offending such an influential 
person, refrained from asking him to do so. It is not im- 
probable that the proi)rietor was kept from visiting the 
province by fear of his unpopularity. Instead of doing 
this, he sought to improve the organization of the agent's 
business, and made him accountable to a Ijoard of revenue. 
This brought about the much desired resignation of IJoyd. 
The proprietor also strove to get what he could from tlie 
province by ordering the sale of his manors and reserved 
lands. This three-fold movement began in 1760, when 
instructions were sent to Lloyd to purchase or build, with 
the advice of the governor, a house to be called the office 

1 Shaipe's Correspondence, Vol. II J, p. l."? d scq. 

2 11>i(l., Vol. II, p. G2 ct .srv., Vol. Ill, pp. 20S, 215 el srq., 241, 257, 
316, 375, 382. 

^Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 273. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 67 

of the receiver general. In this office he was directed to 
put all counterparts of leases of manors and reserved 
lands, all bonds and agreements with quit-rent farmers, 
all })lans of manors and reserved lands, and all ac- 
counts of stewards, tenants, and rents ; to have the 
terms of manors and reserved lands, leases, and fees for 
surveying published in every county, so as to prevent 
any imposition by stewards ; to oblige the naval officers 
to render account on September 29 of each year ; and to 
submit his own accounts to the auditing of the board of 
revenue.! As usual Lloyd was slow to comply with his 
instructions, and it was nearly six years before the build- 
ing for the office was completed : but after the first audit- 
ing of his accounts he I'csigned. His resignation, however, 
was no immediate gain ; for the proprietor's appointment 
of his own intimate friend, the renegade Bennet Allen, as 
his successor, only showed how unfit the proprietor was to 
be at the head of a state, and how undeserving he was of 
the respect of the people. Yet Allen did not long serve 
as agent.2 

In 1706, the year in which the building for the receiver 
general's office was completed, the board of revenue was 
appointed and directed to inspect Lloyd's accounts and 
make regulations for his office. The members of this 
board were the governor, commissary general, deputy 
secretary, attorney general, and judges of the land office. 
Its membership, therefore, included the leading public 
officers. It was given access to every office and control 
over every officer who had anything to do with the land 
business or with the proprietor's revenue. It was in- 
structed to furnish the proprietor annually with an exact 
detail of every branch of his revenue, and to give the re- 
ward paid for each service of every officer. In executing 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 652. ^ Minutes of the Board of Reveuue. 



68 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

its instructions the board audited the accounts and re- 
vised all instructions to the various ofiicers ; among 
which, when revised, were instructions under tliirty-three 
heads to the agent, under twenty-three heads to the 
deputy surveyors, under sixteen heads to the receivers, 
under fifteen heads to the judges of the land office, under 
nine heads to the rent-roll keepers, besides others to the 
examiner general, attorney general, commissary general 
deputy commissaries, sheriffs, clerks of the provincial and 
county courts, and naval officers. When revised they 
were sent to the proprietor for his approval, together 
with a recommendation that a new commission be issued 
to the board of revenue for more precisely pointing out 
its duties and defining its powers. The board met three 
times a year, and must have exercised an effective control 
not only over the private, but also over the public, rela- 
tions of the land office.^ 

Thus far, therefore, it appears that the land office was 
chiefly private before the Revolution of 1G89; that during 
the period of royal government there was a more marked 
division of it into public and private relations ; and that 
after the restoration of the proprietary government, so far 
as private relations were concerned, it fell into an ex- 
tremely neglected and confused condition. But so alarming 
did the confusion become, that the proprietor, and more 
especially his uncle, the secretary residing in England, 
was aroused to effective action ; and by the shrewd busi- 
ness energy of the latter the proprietor's well-organized 
control threatened again to become supreme in every 
department of the land office. Doubtless such a threat 
was one of the chief causes of provoking the final and 
most spirited controversy over the question of the public 
and the private nature of that office. But attention must 

1 Minutes of the Board of Revenue. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 69 

be given to the development of the public relations during 
the last period before an account of that controversy can 
be made clear. 

It has been seen that during the period of the royal 
government the management of the land office lay chiefly 
with the secretary ; yet the agent retained the less public 
part of the records and the title of register of that office. 
At the time of the dispute between Governor Hart and 
Agent Carroll the office of register was united with that 
of the secretary. In 1717 Philemon Lloyd, the deputy 
secretary, appointed Edward Griffith register and keeper 
of the land records, while he retained for himself the 
power of granting land warrants and of preparing land 
grants. Four years later the proprietor constituted Lloyd 
judge of the land office, and authorized him to hear and 
determine differences arising between contending parties 
in land affairs as far as legally he might, " according to 
right, reason and good conscience."^ In 1733 Edmund 
Jennings, the new secretary and judge of the land office, 
received a set of instructions under nineteen heads. 
According to those instructions he was to receive the 
assistance of the chancellor in the determination of all 
disputes that came before him as judge of the land office ; 
he was not to permit any land warrant to issue until the 
agent or the chancellor had certified in writing that the 
purchase money had been paid ; he was annually to furnish 
the rent-roll keepers with a record of all lands granted ; 
he was to give the county clerks directions to be very 
exact in transmitting to the agent the alienations every 
year ; he was to inform the attorney general with respect 
to any surplus land ; he was to insert in every grant a 
proviso that the grant should become void on the non- 
payment of rent ; and to the discoverer of escheated land 

1 Kilty, p. 269. 



70 MAIIVLAM) AS A TKOIMM ICTAUY I'ltoVlNCE 

he was to allow one-third the value thereof.^ From 174<) 
to the end of the proprietary ^overiinieut tliere were two 
judges of the land oflice, which had become detached from 
that of the secretary. The judge was always connuis- 
sioned as judge and register, but lie always appointed 
another as register. After the creation of the board of 
revenue an appeal lay from the decision of the judges of 
the land office to that board, whereas before that time the 
appeal was to the governor, either as such or in the char- 
acter of chancellor. 

The judges, the register of the land office, and the 
agent, instead of the surveyor general and the secretary, 
had now become chief officers in territorial affairs ; and 
the method of acquiring title to hind had become quite 
different from what it had been in the first period. In 
the later years, when a person desired to ol)tain a grant 
of some vacant land he applied to the agent, who, upon 
such person's paying down the purchase or caution money, 
gave him an order to the judges of the land olhce for a 
common warrant. Whereupon the- register of the land 
office made out such warrant, which, wlien signed by the 
judges and stamped with the official seal, was directed to 
the surveyor general. In pursuance of this warrant the 
de[)uty surveyor of the county in which the land lay sur- 
veyed the land and returned to the examiner general a 
certificate of survey describing the situation of the land 
and the bounds thereof. After the examiner general was 
satisfied that the description had been properly made, and 
that every part of the certificate was in due form, he 
endorsed it and returned it to the land office. After a 
patent liad been prepared and the chancellor had passed 
the same by signing his name and ordering the great seal 
of the province to be affixed to it, the patentee might take 

1 Kilty, pp. 'S-V2-2:\4. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 71 

it out of tlie office. Then, in December following, the 
judges of the land office, the surveyor general, the deputy 
surveyor, the examiner general, and the chancellor made 
out their several accounts against the patentee for fees 
due to them ; which fees the sheriff was directed to col- 
lect in the summer following. 

If a person applied for land that was cultivated by some 
one who had no right thereto, or that was contiguous to a 
tract which he already possessed, he had first to petition 
the judges of the land office for a special warrant to sur- 
vey the particular tract or parcel, or he petitioned to 
resurvey the tract he was already possessed of, and to add 
thereto the contiguous vacant lot. The special warrant 
or warrant for resurvey might then be issued, signed, and 
sealed after the same manner as a common warrant, and 
directed to the deputy surveyor, who, after the survey, 
returned to the examiner general the certificate giving a 
particular account of the improvements. After the cer- 
tificate had been passed by the examiner general and re- 
turned to the land office, the petitioner carried it to the 
agent to whom he paid the caution or purchase money and 
what was demanded for improvements. The sum paid 
was endorsed by the agent on the certificate, after which 
a patent was granted as in case of a common warrant. ^ 

Although it is evident that the organization and admin- 
istration of the public side of the land office were system- 
atic and regular, and gave general satisfaction, the same 
cannot be said of the private side ; and the representatives 
of the people sometimes either felt that they had cause for 
complaint or else were jealous of their rights and asked for 
more publicity. Notice has already been taken of the gov- 
ernor's granting the request of the lower house for an 
account of the proprietor's quit-rents. In 1729 the lower 

iSharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, pp. 404-400. 



72 MARYLAND AS A IMK )I'KIETAKV PKUVlNrE 

house resolved that it was a grievaiiee, and of dangerous 
consequence to tlie {)e()i)le that the conditions of phmtation 
on wliich they hehl their estates were not made public.^ 
In 1740 the committee on grievances reported that the 
agent's commission had not been recorded. Both com- 
mittee and lower house held that it ought to be, on the 
ground that the office of agent was a public one with re- 
spect to the people and their interests, and that, if the 
commission were not recorded, they could not be certain 
of receiving due credit for payments made by them to dis- 
charge their rents and other dues.^ 

In 1729, ujjon complaint raised in the lower house 
against the power exercised by Philemon Lloyd as judge 
of the land office, that house resolved itself into a commit- 
tee of the whole to examine into the charges, and sent for 
all papers, records, and persons necessary to throw light 
on the affair. After its examination this committee found 
that Lloyd, upon petition and entry of caveats, had heard 
and determined several controversies concerninor the ffrant- 
ing of land. It also found that when a person had ob- 
tained a land warrant and paid the necessary dues, liis 
patent might l)e stayed l)y the entry of a caveat against the 
granting (jf the patent until the parties had been heard l)e- 
fore Lloyd, unless such caveat were withdrawn, or the 
party entering the same nt'glected, upon sunnnons or 
notice, to appear. Although the house did not ajiprove 
of such large judicial {)ower being in the hands of one 
man entirely dependent on the lord proprietor, yet, when 
it found that such had been the custom from the earliest 
time, it voted to make no furtlier in(iuiry.^ 

The animosity of the lower house with respect to the 
land office was most thoroughly aroused in 1770 at the 

iL. II. J., August 6, 1729. 2 //./^/.^ July 23, 1740. 

8 //,((/., July 24, ;]0, 172S). 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 73 

very time when, through the work of the board of revenue, 
the proprietor's control of the hind office seemed to be 
growing- strong again. Moreover, it was the time when 
the feeling of the lower house was bitter against the mem- 
bers of the board of revenue because those members were 
also the leading officers of the government, and because, 
as the lower house claimed, they were becoming indepen- 
dently rich aiad powerful by receiving too large fees. After 
the law regulating fees had expired, the judges of the 
land office instructed their clerk to continue to charge ac- 
cording to the old regulation. As a consequence of follow- 
ing such instruction, the lower house committed the clerk 
to prison. In order to effect his release the governor 
prorogued the Assembly on the day following his commit- 
ment. Later in the same month he first published a 
paper for the regulation of fees in the land office, and then 
issued a proclamation for the regulation of all other 
officers' fees. He made this distinction, as he afterward 
stated, because he regarded the judges and register of the 
land office as the private agents of the proprietor, rather 
tlian public officers. 

Such a course, pursued by the governor after the lower 
house had sent the clerk of the land office to prison, pro- 
voked a lively debate. The lower house went so far as 
to assert that the lord proprietor had no right to dispose 
of his vacant lands upon terms different from his former 
proclamations, nor to settle the fees paid for services per- 
formed in the land office. ^ Furthermore, with respect to 
the public or private nature of that office, the house thus 
expressed its view to the governor : "A question of 
momentous concern to the people of this province may 
arise, whether the land office is a public or private office ? 
. . . The land office, sir, is the public repository of 

1 L. H. J., November 21, 1770. 



74 MAi:VLAXD AS A I'ROl'KIKTA It V IMtOVINCK 

the first and most necessary evidence of every man's 
title to his real estate in this province; the whole records 
have been made np, so far as we can trace, at the expense 
of the people. These records have been considered as 
public records, kept under securities appointed by acts 
of assembly ; and office copies are constantly received 
and admitted as evidence by the courts of justice. It very 
much concerns the landholders in this province, to know 
by what tenure they hold their estates ; if they have no 
right to recur to the land-office records and have copies 
but at the will of his Lordship or on the terms his Lord- 
ship may be pleased to allow them, tiiey indeed are in all 
cases, where copies are necessary to evidence their titles, 
only tenants at the will of the proprietor, and tJKtsc neces- 
sary copies may be withheld till the i)roprietor receive 
the profit of another sale." ^ 

The governor conceded that in so far as the land office 
was the repository of the muniments of the tenants' estates, 
it was a public office, and the people of Maryland were 
entitled to have access to it as well as to other offices. 
But he held that the lord proprietor had the clearest 
rii^ht to dispose of his real estate on such terms as lie 
saw fit, the clearest right to direct the formal observances 
used in making titles to his grants, and the clearest right 
to settle the fees paid for services perfoniu'd in the land 
office.^ 

The controversy, remaining unsettled, was only lost 
sight of in the great struggle with the mother country. 
Had the proprietary government continued longer, (lov- 
ernor Eden, a social favorite with winning ways and 
political tact, would doubtless have delayed the iinal and 
comi)lete defeat of the lord proprietor. As it was, before 
the overthrow came, the indications were strong that the 

1 L. H. J., November 22, 1771. - /''(<'., November 30, 1771. 



LAND AND THE LAND OFFICE 75 

proprietary land — the lord's demesne — was soon to dis- 
appear, and that the proprietor's riglit to escheat was to be 
lost. The manorial system for the large tenants had long 
since been abandoned. Governor Eden had conceded that 
the land office was public in nature with respect to the 
custody of the records.' The question of public or private 
control in acquiring title was, therefore, about the only 
one yet remaining to be solved. 



CHAPTER II 

TERRITORIAL REVENUE 

All territorial revenue was the proprietor's private 
income and was, of course, feudal in nature. Even dur- 
ing the period of royal government such revenue con- 
tinued to be paid to the proprietor or his agents. A great 
part of it did not circuhite in the province after it had 
been collected, but was sent to the i)roprictor in I-'^nghmd. 
The rates of it, from the most important sources, were 
from time to time increased as much as the proprietor 
thought expedient. 

The peoi)le felt that too much money was drained out 
of the province to enrich a non-resident. On several 
occasions they sought information as to the amount of 
that revenue, or some branches of it. They contended 
that the rates of it, when once fixed, should remain 
unchanged except with their consent. They sometimes 
complained that the farmers or receivers of certain 
branches of it were extortionate. And as the feudal 
system was gradually outgrown in the mother country, 
they endeavored to cliininate the most objectionable sources 
of such revenue. 

The most imi)orlant sources were the pureliase money 
paid for either vacant or ini[)roved land, (juit-ients, aliena- 
tion fines, ferry money, and port duties. 

At the beginning, one hundred acres of land were 
granted to or for any person, between the ages of sixteen 

76 



TEKRITOllIAL KEVENUE 77 

and sixty, who came and settled in the province. But it 
was only a few years before the amount granted on those 
conditions was reduced to fifty acres. In the year 1683 
the proprietor ceased to grant any land whatever merely 
on condition of settlement, and demanded that a price at 
the rate of two hundred pounds of tobacco for every hun- 
dred acres should be paid, as the condition of a grant. 
The next year that rate was raised to two hundred and 
forty pounds of tobacco, and it has already been seen how, 
during the period of royal government, the rate of the 
year 1684 came to be doubled. ^ In the year 1717 the rate 
was changed to forty shillings sterling per hundred acres ; 
and in the year 1738 it was raised to X5 sterling per hun- 
dred acres, which was the rate existing at the time the 
proprietary government was overthrown. 

In the year 1741 the committee on grievances com- 
plained that the purchase money for vacant land in Mary- 
land was £5 sterling per hundred acres, whereas in Vir- 
ginia it was only ten shillings for the same quantity. This 
conunittee was also keenly conscious of the fact that in 
Virginia such revenue remained in the country, while in 
Maryland it passed out from the circulation within the 
province. 2 From the close of the seventeenth century 
there had existed a feeling that the terms on which the 
proprietor granted land, when once fixed, should continue 
unchanged. 

^ Escheated land, always including what improvements 
had been made upon it, was sold either to the discov- 
erer of it at two-thirds of its estimated value, or it was 
disposed of at a public sale to the highest bidder, and 
the discoverer was given one-third of the amount thus 
received.^ 

In 1761 the proprietor directed that his manors and 

1 See SMjira, p. 62. 2 l. H. J., May 25, 1744. 3 ivilty, p. 234. 



<0 .MAIIVLANI) AS A I'lM »l'i; I KTA 11 V I'lKJVINCE 

reserved lands should be sold ut a price not less than 
.£50 sterling per liundred acres. But in ITOO his instruc- 
tions for the sale of such lands directed that they should 
be sold to the highest bidder, provided the ])id was e(i[ual 
to X30 sterling per hundred acres for what was unculti- 
vated, or <£100 sterling per hundred acres for what had 
been cultivated and improved.^ 

The quit-rent reserved in grants due in 1G33 was regu- 
larly twenty pounds of good wheat for every hundred 
acres, but it was increased in the grants due the follow- 
ing year. In 1642 the quit-rent for future grants was 
changed to two shillings for every hundred acres. In 
1G58 the proprietor gave instruction that the quit-rent 
reserved on every grant of a manor should in the next 
year be increased to four shillings sterling for every hun- 
dred acres ; and in IGGO he gave instruction for a like 
increase to be reserved on other grants. ^ But FendalTs 
rebellion broke out in lGo9, and even after its suppression, 
such an opposition to the government continued that the 
quit-rent of two shillings sterling remained unchanged.-^ 

However, in the year 16G9, came another instruction 
from the proprietor directing that the quit-rent be in- 
creased.* The next year the right of voting at an elec- 
tion of members of the lower house was taken from 
such freemen as did not possess at least fifty acres of 
land, or a visible personal estate worth £40 sterling. 
After such restriction of suffrage, but in oidy a few 
cases before it, were the (juit-rcnts increased to the four 
shillings rate. 

The first session of Assembly that was called after an 

iC. ■R.,Fpbraary 21, ITfiG. 

2 Proceedings of tlie Council, lf);](3 to 1GG7, pp. 458, 450. 

•'' Land-dllii'i- Huconls. 

* rroceeiliugs of the Council, 10G7 to 1G87-88, p. 55. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 79 

election had been held under the new regulation of the 
suffrage passed an act imposing an export duty on tobacco 
of two shillings per hogshead. One-half of that duty 
was to be given to the proprietor as a recompense for the 
heavy expense he had incurred in founding the colony, 
provided he accepted good tobacco at twopence per 
pound, in payment of his quit-rents and alienation fines. 
The market value of tobacco during the continuance of 
that act seldom exceeded one penny per pound — so the 
twelvepence per hogshead was by no means a straight 
gift. The act was to continue during the life of the pro- 
prietor, Cecilius ; and it was later continued during the 
life of his successor, Charles. Even after the overthrow 
of the proprietary government in the year 1689, the twelve- 
pence were given to the proprietor. But the Assembly, 
after the royal government had been established, asked in 
return for the twelvepence that the conditions of planta- 
tion, which were in force before the revolution, should 
remain unchanged, or, at least, not be made less favorable 
than those in Virginia. ^ 

On February 20, 1714-15, Charles, the second proprie- 
tor, died, and his immediate successor, Benedict Leonard 
Calvert, survived him only two months. Wherefore, in 
April, 1715, Charles, the son of Benedict Leonard Calvert, 
became fourth proprietor. In the same year, 1715, a law 
was made to enlarge the size of tobacco hogsheads nearly 
one-fourth ; and an offer of a duty of eighteen pence per 
hogshead was at the same time made to the new proprie- 
tor, on condition that he would continue to accept payment 
for his quit-rents and alienation fines in tobacco at two- 
pence per pound.2 The offer was refused, and the next 
year it was reported that the proprietor and his guardian 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1G87-88 to 1693, p. 3G1. 
2U. H. J., May 30, 1716. 



80 MAi:VLAND AS A I'KOl'UIETAK V I'lMtVINCE 

liad leased his rents for six years lo Henry Darnall for 
.£300 sterling and sixty-seven thousand pounds of tobacco 
per annum. ^ The Assembly preferred to give the proprie- 
tor a duty of two shillings per hogshead, as a full equivalent 
for both the quit-rents and alienation hues, rather than 
give the sums stated in the lease to Darnall. Accordingly, 
Darnall gave up the lease, the proi)rietor accepted the two 
shillings offer, and the terms of that offer were inserted 
in a law which was continued in force by successive revi- 
vals until 1733. 

Such a law did away with the expense of keeping up 
the rent-rolls, which, in 1716, were estimated at ten thou- 
sand pounds of tobacco per annum ; and it otherwise much 
decreased the expense of collecting. It must also in time 
have proved beneficial to the country by its encouragement 
of the raising of other products than tobacco. Yet each 
party to the agreement soon came to think or to fear that 
the other had too good a bargain. Thus, while the law 
Avas before the lower house for its first revival, in 1720, 
that body acknowledged its advantages, but was ill at ease 
because it felt that the proprietor had the better oppor- 
tunit}^ to make a comparison between the value of the 
rents and the income from the two shillings duty.^ While, 
on the other hand, in 1726, Governor Charles Calvert, a 
relative of the proprietor, informed the Asseml)ly that in 
his opinion the income from the two shillings duty did not 
exceed one-half the gross value of the quit-rents and aliena- 
tion fines if paid according to the terms of the grants ; and 
that nothing but the proprietor's tender regard for his 
tenants could induce him to consent to a longer continu- 
ance of the law.^ 

The following year, Benedict Leonard Calvert, a brother 

lU. H. J., July 24. 171(5. "- L. II. J., April 8, 1720, 

»//.('/., July 14, 172(3. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 81 

of the proprietor, became governor. The unprosperous 
times, owing to the bad condition of the tobacco trade, 
continued ; and the opposition to the proprietor was 
increasing, this being due hirgely to the bitter contro- 
versy over the question of the extension of English statutes 
to Maryhand. The governor's health was miserable ; he 
felt that the people were getting control of the govern- 
ment, and he wished to avoid an increase of trouble. As 
the time for the fourth revival of the law which granted 
the equivalent for quit-rents and alienation fines drew 
near, in 1729, he wrote how jealous the people were grow- 
ing because they thought the proprietor had too good a 
bargain, while the proprietor continued to hold that the 
quit-rents due according to the terms of the grants vastly 
exceeded the equivalent. The governor thought there was 
an error in computation on both sides, and prayed for a 
continuance of the law. He held that the people could 
not find an easier way to pay their rents, that the law was 
especially favorable to the poor, and that its encourage- 
ment of husbandry was a great benefit to so young a coun- 
try. He thought that the rent-rolls would not amount 
to more than X6000 sterling per annum, and if it could 
be collected, a great allowance should be made for 
charges and losses in collection. " But alas," he con- 
cluded, "they cannot be collected. There is not money 
enough here to be got to make regular payments from 
time to time, so that your officers must take corn, wheat, 
beef, pork, tobacco, or some commodity of the country, 
the conversion whereof into money, and from money into 
bills, must be a vexatious, expensive, and almost an endless 
and insuperable task."^ 

The law was revived in 1729 for three years as usual ; 
but in 1732 it was revived for one year only ; and in 1733 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 2, pp. 72, 73. 



82 MARYLAND AS A I'KOIMM ICTAUY ruOVINCE 

the l)ill for reviving it failed to ])a.s.s in the lowei- house 
by a vote of twenty-one to twenty-six.^ The dek'ffates 
from the city of Annapolis and the four western counties 
— those least adapted to tobacco culture — gave seventeen 
of the twenty-six negative votes. Such a vote, therefore, 
would seem to indicate tluit the general opposition to the 
proprietor or his government was already much the 
strongest in the more newly settled parts of the province, 
otherwise the opposition to the bill would have been 
expected to come from the tobacco-producing counties. 

Before the expiration of the law, Samuel Ogle, a more 
able and successful administrator than Benedict Leonard 
Calvert, had become governor. The controversy over 
English statutes had been adjusted. INloreover, the pro- 
prietor, by a visit to the province at that time, seems to 
have strengtliened his position. So, although the dilli- 
culty of revising tlie rent-rolls and the trouble in collect- 
ing the rents were doubtless great, yet it was the people 
that soon expressed regret for the loss of the equivalent. 
After an election of a new lower house of Assembly, that 
house, in 1735, complained of the great scarcity of money 
in circulation with whicli to pay the rents, and asked the 
upper house to join with them in an address to the pro- 
prietor concerning another equivalent.^ TJiat address, 
prepared in the lower house, was an humble confession of 
the mistake that had been made, and is a clear representa- 
tion of the situation at the time it was written. It is 
therefore here inserted. 

" We acknowledge with the deepest sense of gratitude 
that the agreement which your Lordsliip condescended to 
enter into with your tenants to raise a duty on tobacco in 
lieu of your quit-rents and alienation fines was a very 
great ease to tliem, and notliing could have been more to 

1 L. II. J., April :], 17;J3. 2 /^j(^.^ April 15, 1735. 



TERIMTORIAL ItEVENUE 83 

their advantage than a continuance of that agreement 
which your Lordship and our present Governor on your 
behalf was pleased to offer, and which the Assembly, 
through a mistaken notion of the country's interest, re- 
fused to accept of. 

" The difficulty which the people labor under now they 
are obliged to pay their money according to the tenor of 
their grants far exceeds what could have been imagined 
or foreseen, and must of course increase in proportion to 
the scarcity of money in the country and will prove very 
detrimental if not ruinous to many of the inhabitants of 
this province. To avert which evils we are obliged thus 
humbly to apply to your Lordship and to beseech you to 
commiserate the uidiappy condition to which your ten- 
ants will certainly be reduced and to accept of a sum of 
money to be raised in the best and easiest manner it can 
be by the legislature in lieu of your quit-rents and alien- 
ation fines, and that your Lordship will be pleased to give 
instructions to His Excellency the Governor or directions 
in such other manner as your Lordship shall think fit con 
cerning this important affair."^ 

The next year an offer from the lower house of an ex- 
port duty of two and a half shillings per hogshead, as 
an equivalent, was rejected by the upper house ; and a 
little later another offer from that house of X4000 sterling 
per annum, although agreed to by the upper house, was 
refused by the proprietor. Eight years later the lower 
house asked the governor to submit to the proprietor its 
offer of two and a half shillings per hogshead for seven 
years ; ^ and when, in the following year, the governor 
made known the proprietor's refusal of that offer, the lower 
house asked what the proprietor or the governor judged 
a reasonable equivalent, and requested that an account of 

iL. H. J., April 23, 1735. ^ jua.^ May 26, 1744. 



84 MAKVLAND AS A IMlol'RIETAUY I'KOVINCE 

liis aiimial rereipts fn^iu quit-rents be laid Ijefcn-e tliem. 
Whereupon the governor stated that the proprietor 
thought no equivalent reasonable under <£oU00 sterling 
per annum; and in response to the repeated request of 
the lower house he gave it the desired aceount.' A bill 
for raising the <£5000 sterling per annum then passed 
both houses. But the governor, as he had threatened, 
withheld his assent to it as well as to other favorite bills 
of the lower house, because no bill had been passed pro- 
viding a fund for arms and ammunition. ^ Such was the 
last attempt that appears in the records to agree upon an 
equivalent. 

The proprietor must have felt that no equivalent in the 
form of a fixed annual sum could be agreed upon that 
would be advantageous to him ; and it is probable that he 
intimated that he might accept an equivalent of <£5000 
sterling with no other end in view than to keep under 
control an ()p[»()sition that had been rather violent since 
1739. His most relialjle and most able supporter in the 
province, Daniel Dulaiiy, wrote in 173G : " I am persuaded 
that when all the lands undei' grant in the Province are 
brought to the rent-roll that the quit-rents will amount 
to about £8000 sterling per annum, besides alienation 
fines which must increase and can never decrease."^ The 
proprietor stated that the raising of an equivalent might 
lay too heavy a burden on the tobacco trade.* Experi- 
ence had taught him that, even if an equivalent were 
agreed upon for a term of years, it would not be advisable 
for him to save the expense of keeping up the rent-rolls. 
He knew that, so long as the granting of land continued, 
his income from (piit-rents would increase, while, also, he 

iL. H. .T.. August 28, September .S, 5, 10. 11, 1745. 

27/,/rf., wSeptember 24 and 28, 1745. 

sDulany Papers. •'L. II. J., April 20, 1736. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 85 

felt that as the people gradually became reconciled to 
paying according to the tenor of the grants the difficulties 
and expense of collecting would decrease. 

In 1733 the quit-rent to be reserved in future grants 
was raised to ten shillings for every hundred acres ; five 
years later, when the purchase money per hundred acres 
was raised from four shillings to £5 sterling, the quit- 
rent was reduced to four shillings, but in 1753 the 
proprietor again gave instruction that it be restored to 
ten shillings. The governor held that the ten shillings 
rate was too high, whereupon, the next year, the proprie- 
tor left it with the governor, agent, and judges of the 
land office to reduce it if it seemed advisable ; and the rate 
thereafter seldom exceeded eight shillings for every hun- 
dred acres. 

Nothing appears in the records with respect to aliena- 
tion fines previous to the year 1658, when the conditions 
of plantation issued in that year required that upon the 
alienation of any land to be granted to a tenant there 
should be paid to the proprietor a fine equal to one year's 
rent for the same land. If the alienation were not duly 
recorded and the required fine paid within one month 
thereafter, the alienation was to be void. 

But the attenq^t to enforce such a provision caused con- 
siderable difficulty, especially during the middle of the 
eighteenth century ; and as early as the eve of the Revo- 
lution of 1689 a list of grievances appears to have been 
headed with a charge that officers made illegal demands 
in receiving alienation fines. ^ After the expiration of the 
law which provided the equivalent for quit-rents and 
alienation fines, the lower house raised an effective oppo- 
sition to paying the alienation fine on land devised ; ^ and 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1684 to 1692, p. 203. 
2L. H. J., May 28, 1739. 



80 MAIiYLANU AS A l'U( )l'i:i KTAKV I'UOVINCE 

ill 1742 the proprietor directed that his agent and re- 
ceivers should not take any iine on or for any hind which 
had been aliened by devise.^ In the case of all other 
alienations, however, the proprietor seemed determined to 
preserve his right. 

In 1700 he complained that his income from alienation 
fines was notoriously tritling. As a consequence, he gave 
instruction that in future grants a clause should be in- 
serted which was intended to provide that, whenever the 
alienation fine was not paid within two months after it 
became due, not only should the grant be void, but the 
proprietor might enfeoff the land described therein to 
others. Further, the governor and the ui)i)er house were 
asked to endeavor to secure an amendment to the law for 
the conveyance of land whereby, before the recording of 
the deed, the payment of the alienation fine should be 
required. Secretary Calvert, the proprietor's uncle, rec- 
ommended, as the best w^ay to settle the controversy over 
alienation fines, that a case or two of that kind should be 
brought in the provincial court, or that a bill be liled in 
Chancery, and that, if necessary, appeal be made to the 
king in Council. ^ 

Daniel Dulany, Jr., the ablest lawyer in the province, 
lield that the clause which the proprietor asked to have 
inserted in his future grants would not answer the end 
designed so as to revest the land in the proprietor upon 
the non-payment of the alienation fine. The prudent 
Governor Sharpe was of the opinion that to vary at that 
late day the form of the condition in the grants relative to 
lands reverting to the proprietor for the non-payment of the 
alienation tine, might be said by the opposition to proceed 

J C. R., October 20, 1742 ; Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 503 
et seq. 

''Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 143. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 87 

from a consciousness tliat the old conditiontil clause of 
forfeiture was really defective.^ But while Dulany is 
reported to have represented that the legislative provision 
for requiring the payment of the alienation fine was un- 
necessary — on the ground that the Chancery Court had 
sole cognizance in such matters, — Governor Sharpe feared 
that if he, as chancellor, were to give his decision in a case 
of that kind, there might follow an uprising of the anti- 
government party when the feeling should spread that he 
was not at liberty to give a decree against the proprietor. 
After two years of effort, therefore, the passage in the 
lower house of a compromise bill was secured ; and 
there the controversy over alienation fines seems to have 
ended. 

In Maryland, the long narrow bay, and the numerous 
rivers, over which there was long delay in building con- 
venient bridges, made it highly desirable that social and 
commercial intercourse should be facilitated by well-regu- 
lated ferries properly adapted to the transportation of men, 
wagons, horses, and cattle ; and as the population increased, 
the earnings of ferrymen might have been considerable. 
But a disagreement of proprietor and people, first arising 
in 1741, with respect to ferry licenses, caused the regula- 
tion of ferries, and all conveniences relating to that means 
of transportation, to remain grievously defective. 

Legislative activity for providing the province with 
ferries began as early as 1638, and twenty years later 
every county court except that of Kent County was 
directed by act of assembly to select some place within its 
jurisdiction for keeping a ferry, and to assess the county 
for the purpose of providing a boat and paying a ferryman. 
Although that law was to continue but three years, and 
was not revived, yet to the county courts was left full con- 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 203 et seq. 



88 MARYLAND AS A I'ROI'UIKTAi; V PUoVIXCE 

trol over ferries until 1741. ]>iil it was at tliat very time 
that the remote western distriets of the provinee luid just 
begun to develop rapidly. In that year tlie proprietor, 
Charles Calvert, authorized his agent to select suitable 
places for ferries, ordered that no one should keep a ferry 
without a license, stated for what services the boats should 
be tit, and fixed the rates which ferr3'men might charge. 
For the license, when first obtained, and for its renewal 
each 3'ear, a fixed sum of money was to be paid to the 
agent for the proprietor's private use. But soon after 
such action became known, the committee on grievances 
made complaint against the license money that was de- 
manded, and stated that, although the proprietor had 
fixed the rates, yet ferrymen charged whatever they 
pleased, and that frequently their charges were exorbitant. 
Further, the committee stated that in Virginia ferries 
were regulated by acts of assembly, and that the deter- 
mining of ferrymen's charges by the proprietor was most 
arbitary and illegal, and tended to alienate the affections 
of the people from his government.^ The next 3-ear a bill 
was introduced in the lower house for the regulation of 
ferries. But in the meantime such a clamor had been 
raised against the pro[)rietor's attempt to regulate them, 
and to obtain money from ferry licenses, that he gave up 
the attempt ; and it is probable that it was on account of 
his doing so that the ferry bill failed to pass in the lower 
house by a vote of twenty-nine to fifteen. 

Charles Calvert never renewed that attempt ; but in the 
year 1753, his successor, Frederick, ordered that the gov- 
ernor, the judges of the land office, and the secretar}' 
sliould, if possihU'. lease the several ferries to the county 
courts for a lease tine, and an annual I'cnt.^ Just what 
was the outcome of that instruction does not appear. But 

1 L. II. J., June 12, 1741. 2 c. R., 1753. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 89 

two years later Governor Sliarpe spoke unfavorably of the 
proprietor's conduct with regard to ferries ; and until the 
final overthrow of the proprietary government some ferries 
were kept by order of the county courts, and others by 
private persons.^ In the case of the former the justices of 
the county court levied a sum of tobacco on the county for 
paying the ferrjnuan, and the ferry was free for the inhabi- 
tants of that county. In the case of those kept by private 
persons, the keeper demanded of passengers whatever he 
pleased ; and what he demanded had to be paid or convey- 
ance was refused. The need of a regulation of ferries 
must have kept increasing. " But," said the governor, 
"the people will never vest the proprietor with the right 
and power of granting licenses, and he will not pass a 
regulation bill without it.^^ 

The power " to make, erect, and constitute " ports, to 
have all " rights, jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges " 
with respect to such ports, and to " have and enjoy the 
taxes and subsidies payable " in the same, was, by the char- 
ter, given to the proprietor. The first act of assembly 
that imposed a port duty was passed in the year 1G50, and 
was entitled, " An order for the reedifying of the fort 
of St. Inigoes." Its purpose was clearly defence. It 
provided for strengthening a fort that had already been 
constructed at the port of St. Inigoes. Toward defray- 
ing the expense, it levied a duty of one half-pound of 
powder and two pounds of shot, or the equivalent in 
value, on every ton burden of every vessel trading with 
the province, but not belonging in it, that had a deck or 
a deck flush fore and aft. Although the duration of the 
act was not limited, it was superseded in the year 1661 by 
another which was entitled : " An act for port duties and 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 509. 
2/6id., Vol. I, p. 236. 



90 MAKVLANI) AS A l*llOPUII-:TA llV PROVINCE 

masters of ships." The first act was a mere ordinance of 
the General ^Vsseml)ly ; the second act was a hiw requir- 
ing the lord proprietor's assent. In the second act, while 
the duty was raised to one half-pound of powder and 
three pounds of shot, the idea of defence was, to say the 
least, much less prominent. Again, by the first act, the 
duty was to be employed by the governor for the use of 
the fort, and for such otlier necessary and general uses 
as he should think fit ; while by the second act it was 
directed that the duty should be paid to the lord proprie- 
tor and liis heirs, and nothing was said about the use for 
which it was to be employed. 

As there arose no urgent need of fortifying the ports 
of Maryland, the proprietor received the payment of the 
duty, in money, for his own private use. For many years 
the people offered little or no complaint. But at the time 
of the Revolution of 1689 they declared that the legis- 
lators who passed the act had intended that the proprietor 
should, with the income from that duty, make secure 
the several ports and harbors, by erecting forts and pro- 
viding them with ammunition. Accordingly, the first 
Assembly that sat under the royal government passed an 
act which changed the name of the duty from port duty to 
tonnage duty, and gave a part of it for tlie support of the 
council of state, and the remainder for purchasing arms 
and ammunition. But the projjrietor laid his claim before 
the Iiome govenmu'nt. ami \\lu'n the question came to 
the solicitor general for decision he decided that the 
act of the year 1661 gave the duty to the proprietor for 
his private use. The crown, therefore, disallowed the 
act and directed that the said duty should be paid to the 
proprietor. 1 

No further dispute arose about the matter until the 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1G87-88 to 1G93, pp. 421, 422, 454. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 91 

year 1739, when a party appeared that seemed determined 
to make every possible charge against the proprietor and 
his government. The pretence of that party with respect 
to the tonnage duty was that by a repealing act of the 
year 1704 the law imposing it had been repealed. ^ It is 
true that the repealing act of 1701 did declare all laws 
that had ever been made in the province before that year 
to be repealed, save those mentioned in an excepting 
clause ; and in that clause was no mention of the tonnage 
act. But there was also in that repealing act this saving 
clause, viz, " Saving always to all and every person and 
persons whatever was his and their right and benefits 
wliich he or they had by the former acts of Assembly." 
Therefore, on the same basis as that of the solicitor gen- 
eral's decision in the year 1692, the proprietor was still 
entitled to his tonnage duty. Nevertheless, until the 
overthrow of the proprietary government the lower house 
continued to deny his right to it. In 1761, when tlie 
Board of Trade asked for copies of laws in force, that 
house would not agree to defray the expense of preparing 
them unless the editor would leave out, with one other act, 
the act for tonnage duty.''^ But the fair-minded Governor 
Sharpe and Daniel Dulany, Jr., with his distinguished 
legal talent, never gave a sign of doubting the proprietor's 
right to that duty.^ 

Although in matters of territorial revenue the more 
important trouble arose over questions involving the pro- 
prietor's right to it, yet, as might be expected, the collec- 
tion of it gave rise to occasional difficulties. However, 
so little trouble arose out of the collection of that payable 
to the naval officers at the ports or that due as purchase 

iL. H. J., June 5, 1739. 

2 Rharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 480. 

3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 304 ; Uulany Papers. 



92 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

money for land, before the warrant was issued, that it is 
unnecessary to take notice of it ; and as almost no ferry 
money was ever paid to the proprietor, the collection of 
quit-rents and alienation fines alone remains. 

By the terms of the grants the rents were to be paid 
semi-annually at St. Mary's. As already stated the gov- 
ernor and the secretary, aided by the attorney general 
and the sheriffs, attended to the collection of them for 
many years after the founding of the colony. In 1G71 
each sheriff was instructed to prepare for his county a 
rent-roll in which were entered the names of all persons 
who possessed land within the county, the name and 
quantity of every parcel of land, and what quit-rent each 
tenant was annually to pay.^ Six years later the county 
clerks were ordered under severe penalties for disobedience 
properly to report every alienation in order that the rent- 
rolls might be kept correct and the alienation fines be 
collected. 2 

In 1676 the duty of superintending the collecting was 
taken from the governor and the secretary by the appoint- 
ment of two receivers and collectors of all the proprietor's 
revenue.^ lliey were given power to appoint deputies, 
and required to direct the sheriffs and all other deputy 
collectors to give an account to them once a year. After 
his appointment in 1684, an officer, usually known as 
agent and receiver general, had the chief management in 
collecting the proprietary revenue. IJnl in 1733 the 
governor was, to a limited extent, associated with him. 
Finally, in 1766, a building for the agent's office was 
completed, all officers under the agent were made more 
strictly and regularly accountable to him, and tlie whole 

1 Proceedings of the Council, IHOT to 1687-88, pp. 91, 92. 

2 IhUh. 1(171 to ir.Sl, pp. 159, 100. 
8/6irf.,pp. 119, 120. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 93 

business was subjected to what became known as the board 
of revenue. 1 

From 1733 on, immediately under the agent were two 
rent-roll keepers appointed by the governor — one for the 
eastern and one for the western shore. Under the rent- 
roll keeper, a farmer or receiver of the rents for each 
county was also chosen by the governor. ^ 

The rent-roll keepers received five per cent of the net 
value of the rents. The rents were usually farmed, but 
in a few counties they were collected by receivers. In 
1733 the farmer received twenty-five per cent while the 
receiver was paid ten per cent. In 1736 the farmer's rate 
was reduced to twenty per cent ; in 1753 it was reduced 
to fifteen per cent ; and two years later, when the sheriffs 
were appointed farmers, the per cent was reduced to ten. 
But in 1765, when the proprietor wished to have the 
farmers' rate reduced to six per cent, the governor 
informed him of the difficulties of collection, and stated 
that even at ten per cent the sheriff regarded it as a bur- 
den of his office.^ The next year the board of revenue, 
not satisfied with the way in which the sheriffs farmed, 
decided to take the work out of their hands and include 
two of the small counties in one farm.* 

Before the Revolution of 1689, either the proprietor was 
himself present in the province, or was nearly always 
represented by an able and faithful brother or son, and no 
serious trouble arose with respect to collecting the reve- 
nue. But during the period of royal government much 
difficulty from that source was encountered, although the 
proprietor was given some relief by the crown and by his 
faithful agents. With the restoration of the proprietary 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 652 ; Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. .375. 

2C. R., June 18, 1788. 

3 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 218 et seq. * Bnd., p. 375. 



94 MAllYLAND AS A l'i;< •I'KIH TA i; V I'lloVINCK 

government little (lit'licnlly was to be expected so loni^ as 
proprietor and people agreed upon an eciuivalent. lUit 
after the termination of that agreement several cases of 
alleged extortion were, in 1737, investigated liy the lower 
house, and the chief charge found to be the undervaluing 
of foreign coins that were given in payment for the rents. ^ 
Those found guilty, after being condemned at the bar of 
tlie house, the governor was asked to ])i()secute. I)Ut 
there was doubtless a feeling on the part of the peoj)le at 
that time that a great amount of dilliculty in collecting 
the rents would cause the proprietor to agree to an equiva- 
lent more in the people's favor. However, this and two 
other investigations of a similar nature indicate that the 
collectors of the rents were much restrained from imposing 
hardships on the people tlu'ough fear of being called to 
account by the lower house, of being obliged to pay fees 
to officers engaged in any investigation of their conduct, 
and of incurring the danger of a regular prosecution by 
the government. 2 

In the struggle between proprietor and people with 
respect to territorial revenue, it is therefore clear that the 
proprietor was in a very large measure successful in pre- 
serving his rights and in receiving his dues. With the 
exception of the period of royal government, nearly all 
controversies as to right, and the chief complaints against 
farmers and receivers, arose after 1735 ; and as a result 
of all controversies and complaints the proi)rietor was 
not only not obliged to give up any large source of reve- 
nue, but the rate paid for collecting it was reduced one- 
half. 

Before the end of the proprietary government came, the 
net annual amount of the territorial revenue probably 
exceeded £12,000 sterling. The strength to the govern- 

1 L. H. J., May 4 to May 21, 1737. 2 c. R., June 7, 1748. 



TERRITORIAL REVENUE 95 

ment available from so large an income might, in the 
hands of an administrator like the first Lord Baltimore, 
have been equal to all the opposition which arose out of 
the proprietor's territorial relations ; but in the hands of 
the degenerate Frederick, who was more interested in the 
revenue than in the government, such was not the case. 



CHAPTER III 

THE ACTIVITY OF THE LECISLATIVE ASSEMBLY IN 
TERRITOIUAL ATFAIKS 

In the mediseval fief the lesfislative Assembly existed 
only in germ ; for the most part it merely assented to 
what the lord of the fief proposed. Its fidl development 
meant equality of rights and privileges in the eye of the 
law ; the rise of the Assembl}', therefore, meant the fall of 
the feudal system. (Consequently, special attention to 
the part which the Maryland legislative Assembl}' played 
with respect to territorial affairs may be expected to show, 
from another aspect, the decline of the lord proprietor's 
power. 

Until after the Maryland Assembly had sat for the 
second time, the lord proprietor insisted that he alone had 
the right to initiate legislation. Had the freemen ac- 
knowledged that right to be vested solely in him, it is 
highly probable that the sale of manors would have been 
forbidden b}- law. It is equally probable that the laws of 
the province would have re(piired that on every manoi- 
there should lie at least twenty freemen, that fifteen of 
them should be trained as soldiers and kept ready for the 
service of the country, and that the lord of the manor 
should maintain them in time of sucli service.* I>ut in- 

1 Calvert Papers. Niv 1, pp. 159, 104. 
96 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 97 

stead of succeeding in thus providing the land system 
with the military features of a fief, the bills containing 
those requirements failed to become laws, and in August, 
1638, the lord proprietor conceded to the Assembly the 
right of initiating legislation.^ So, at the very outset, 
while the strong prop to feudalism failed even to be set 
up, the principal obstruction to the growth of the Assem- 
bly's power was removed. 

From the year 1638' until the Revolution of 1689, the 
lord proprietor's control over the legislative Assembly was 
still sufficiently strong to procure some legislation in sup- 
port of his territorial jurisdiction. Yet such legislation 
during that entire period consisted in little more than in 
declaring that title to land could not be acquired by pur- 
chase from the Indians, in determining how soon after 
the issue of the warrant of survey, rent should begin, and 
in determining how long land might be left deserted — 
with the rent unpaid — before it escheated to the proprietor. 
During the same period, legislation in favor of the people 
pro\dded that quit-rents and alienation fines might be 
paid in tobacco, — for that provision, however, the pro- 
prietor was paid, — and it determined the fees of the 
surveyor general. An attempt of the lower house to 
procure a law for the regulation of surveying was 
unsuccessful. 2 

During the period of roj^al government the proprietor 
was without control over legislation, except in so far as 
he was able to interest the crown in protecting his rights. 
Under such conditions the amount of legislation with 
respect to territorial affairs was not large, but it was far- 
reaching in its tendency, and all against the proprietor. 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1664, 
p. 31. 

2 Ihid., 1666 to 1676, pp. 23, 30, 85. 



98 MAUVLAND AS A IMM (I'UIETAUV J'KOVINCE 

]t aiiiK'd at control of tlii' tci'ius on which hni<l should be 
gninted, at making surveyors accountable to the people, 
and at making regulations for surveying. But the crown 
gave the people no encouragement in such legislation ; 
and Avith the exception of an unsatisfactory law for 
determining the bounds of estates, little had resulted 
from that legislation when the proprietary government 
was restored. 

Immediately after the restoration, sufficient harmony 
existed between jiroprietor and people to enable them to 
agree upon a full equivalent for the proprietor's quit- 
rents and alienation lines. For five years the proprie- 
tor permitted the law determining the bounds of estates 
to continue in force. The former of these laws, as 
already stated, was beneficial to both proprietor and 
peo})le. The latter was both detrimental to the people's 
interests and encroached on the proprietor's jurisdiction. 
It i)rovided that the settlement of controversies over the 
bounds between estates should be taken from the courts 
and intrusted to commissions appointed l)y the governor 
and council for each county. At one time an aj)pcal lay 
from one commission to another ; but when it was found 
that upon ap[)cal the first decision was usually reversed, 
the law was so changed as to dispense with the second 
commission for hearing appeals. It was a law under 
which a man's real estate was too frequently at the dis- 
posal of ignorant and interested judges. Could the lower 
house have had its owm way, the law would have been 
made still more injurious by providing that the commis- 
sioners should be elected annually by the people of the 
count \.^ The arbitrary procedure of the commissioners, 
who were subject to no control or regulation, liad tlie 
effect, it was claimed, of setting aside the proprietor's 

1 U. II. J., May G, 1718; October 17 and 25, 1720. 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 99 

rules for the regulation of surveying and determining 
boundaries, and, consequently, robbed him of his right to 
surplus land. It also increased the difficulty of keep- 
ing up the rent-rolls.^ After the judge of the land office 
had presented to the proprietor the several objections to the 
law, he disallowed it, in 1720, on the ground that it was 
repugnant to the laws of Great Britain for determining 
right to property .2 Thirteen years later the law that 
gave the equivalent for quit-rents and alienation fines 
was suffered to expire. 

After the expiration of the last mentioned law, disaffec- 
tion between landlord and tenants increased. Attempts to 
agree upon another equivalent for the rents and fines were 
unsuccessful. The farmers and collectors of rents were 
charged with extortion. The question, how to settle dis- 
puted boundaries, continued to be a troublesome one. Be- 
sides the bills for giving another equivalent for the rents 
and fines, a bill for perpetuating the bounds of land was 
several times considered by the lower house. In the year 
1750, that house ordered such a bill to be printed in the 
Maryland G-azette. '-'Tt proposed that each parish should 
be divided by its vestry into precincts, that at least two 
freeholders should be appointed for each precinct, that 
those freeholders should go round, or procession, every 
man's land, within their precinct, once every four years 
for the purpose of preserving tlie landmarks, and that 
after a man's land had been processioned four times the 
boundary thereof should not be altered.'^ However, the 
bill never became a law, and as years passed the need of 
such a measure disappeared. 

The question of an equivalent and that of boundaries 
between estates had not been long dropped, when the 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 2, pp. i-25. 2U. H. J., July 19, 1721. 

^ Martjland Gazette, Jijly 25, 1750. 



LofC. 



100 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

alarm created by General Braddock's defeat caused 
Governor Sharpe to disregard the lord proprietor's in- 
structions and to give his assent to an act of assembly 
for his Majesty's service which imposed a tax of one shilling 
per hundred acres on all the proprietor's manors and the 
leased portions of his reserved lands. The tax was im- 
posed for seven years, and was estimated to amount to 
X80 sterling per annum. 

Only two years later, when further supplies were asked 
for carrying on the war, the lower house — doubtless 
under the influence of the Pennsylvania assembly — at- 
tempted to impose a tax on the proprietor's quit-rents. 
In a message to the upper house on that subject, they 
said : " There is nothing to us more reasonable than the 
tax on that part of the Proprietor's revenue which arises 
from his quit-rents, and it is by no means less just because 
it has not been before attempted in this Province or estab- 
lished in any other Colony. If it is just and right in itself, 
it ought to be done, whether the governor is at large or 
is restricted. But we shall never presume that our Lord 
Proprietor would give any instruction for preventing a 
tax on his estate here so as to obstruct grants for his 
Majesty's service and the security of his own estate as 
well as ours ; but on the contrary would on all occasions 
freely contribute eciually with his tenants toward the 
protection of his own and their property, and to the 
support of the common cause against his ^Majesty's 
enemies. ... As it is not expressed in our grants that 
we should undertake the burthen of defending ourselves, 
we cannot see how it can arise from the nature of them 
or be a consideration in them."^ When the lord pro- 
prietor, the governor, ami (lie upper house all continued 
firm against the persistent and repeated attempts to tax 
1 L. H. J., April 27, 1758. 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 101 

those rents, the lower house did its best to represent the 
proprietary government in an unfavorable light. ^ 

In addition to actual legislation, the lower house found 
that by j^assing resolutions or by mere concurrence in the 
reports of its committee on grievances it could win popular 
favor, and thus influence the decisions of the courts, or so 
alarm the proprietor as to cause him to yield. For example, 
in the year 1739, in response to the proprietor's proclama- 
tion with respect to vacating grants containing surplus 
land and encouraging the discovery of such grants, the 
lower house, with but one dissenting vote, claimed to 
conceive that such a course of the proprietor might 
" prove of the highest and most pernicious consequence 
to the quiet, peace, and safety" of the province by "en- 
couraging informers, raising and propagating litigious 
and expensive lawsuits, dispossessing families of their 
long-continued tenures, and by invading property of the 
highest nature." Furthermore, the house held that if a 
stop were not put to such proceedings, they might in 
time " tend to the utter subversion of the landed estate 
of the good people of the province for which they and 
their predecessors had honestly paid a full consideration 
to his Lordship and his ancestors, and for the enjoyment 
of which in quiet and security they left their native 
country, risked their lives amongst a heathen, savage, 
merciless people, the inclemencies of the seas, and in- 
temperature of climate.''^ 

Such reports and resolutions frequently had more effect 
than the proprietor's proclamations and instructions against 
which they were usually directed ; and, as it was through 
proclamations and instructions that the proprietor exercised 
his jurisdiction, the fact that those resolutions had so much 

1 Portfolio 13, Nos. 23, 24. 
2L. H. J., May 31, 1739. 



102 MARYLAND AS A IMlOrUI lOTAUV PROVINCE 

force is significant. It was after sncli expression of feel- 
ing in the lower house that the proprietor found it impos- 
sible to secure much from his claims to sur})lus lands, to 
alienation fines on lands devised, or to ferry licenses. It 
has already been seen how that house contended that the 
terms for granting land should be published, and that the 
proprietor had no right to determine the fees paid for ser- 
vices performed in the land office. 

If, therefore, the actual legislation in territorial affairs 
continued small, it nevertheless appears that there had 
been awakened among the people a longing for nearly all 
those rights i)ertaining to land tliat are exercised by a 
legislature of the present day ; and wliat was in time to 
be the outcome, is indicated by what was thought and 
attempted in regard to escheat. 

In 17()0 it was reported that crowds of people from all 
parts of the province gathered around the provincial court 
during its trial of a case in which the whole question of 
escheat was at stake ; and when the incompetent and 
frightened justices seemed strongly disposed to yield to 
popular clamor, that proprietary right Avas rescued only 
with great effort by the attorney general.^ Nine years 
later Ex-Governor Sliarpe advised that legislative action 
be attempted in order to prevent a complete loss of that 
right. He stated that tliere was a growing feeling that, 
whenever it could be shown tliat land had been once 
regularly granted by tlie proprietor, it ought never to 
escheat to him, tliongli it were impossible satisfactorily 
to trace the title back to the original grant ; and an act 
of parliament against latent claims of the crown seemed to 
favor the people. lie therefore proposed that, instead of 
insisting that the title in all cases should be traced back 
to the original grant, a compromise should be made 

1 Portfolio 4, No. 53. 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 103 

with the lower house by which it shoukl be required 
only where the grant had been made within a certain 
fixed number of years ; and that a law on the basis of 
the compromise be then passed. ^ It is not improbable 
that such a compromise, as well as other similar ones, was 
prevented only by the many controversies and the final 
overthrow of the proprietary government that so soon 
followed. 

1 Proprietary Papers. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

In the life of the average Maryland colonist, the para- 
mount motive force was decidedly economic or industrial 
in nature. The religious spirit was Aveak ; the moral 
standard was not high. For the first one hundred years 
and more, not only was the training of the intellect griev- 
ously neglected, l)ut life was further narrowed by insuffi- 
cient social intercourse and by the conliuement of activity, 
in great measure, to the ceaseless labor required for the 
cultivation of tobacco on the sands of soulliern Mary- 
land. 

It was this v^ery narrow view of life tliat caused those 
people to prize all the more highly tlieir riglits as tenants. 
It was with the same view, and in tlie same spirit, that 
their representatives sought in the legislative Assembly 
to protect and to promote their economic interests in 
general. INIoreover, the location of the estates, the great 
number of small estates as against a far less nundjer of 
large ones, and the fact that the government officers 
were paid for their services in tobacco, the staple com- 
modity, added much to tlie zealous obstinacy with which 
industrial questions — prin(ii)ally those relating to the 
tobacco industry — were fought over by the two houses 
of Assembly, the one house standing up for the proprie- 
tor, the officers, and the large landholders, tlie other house 
supporting the interests of the great bodv of small land- 

104 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 105 

holders. So long was the disagreement continued that 
a successful regulation of the industry had not yet been 
made when the larger development — which made possible 
a vigorous political life and increased the industrial inde- 
pendence of the province — had begun to make rapid 
progress. Side by side, therefore, with the controversies 
relating to the proprietor's territorial rights, the industrial 
development, or questions relating thereto, had much to 
do in determining the development of the government. 

Exclusive of those reserved for the proprietor, about 
one-half of all the Maryland manors lay near the mouth of 
the Patuxent or the Potomac, and not far from St. Mary's, 
the early seat of government. Of the other half, a large 
part were on the eastern side of tlie bay along the banks 
of the Choptank, the Elk, or the Chester. Likewise, for 
the first one hundred years, most of the simple freeholds 
lay along the shore of the bay or fronted some river 
bank. 

The usual size of the manor was from 1000 to 2000 
acres, although a few of them contained 5000 or more ; 
and while simple freeholds of 1000 acres or more were 
not rare, yet those containing less than 400 were by 
far the most numerous. Thus of 1119 simple free- 
hold grants made before the year 1663, there were 
60 of 1000 acres or more, 211 of 500 or more, 778 of 
less than 400, and 389 of less than 200. It is also to 
be especially noted in this connection that each of a 
comparatively numerous body of servants received, at 
the expiration of his term of service, an estate of only 
50 acres. Moreover, since previous to 1683 grants were 
made in consideration of the transportation of persons 
into the province, the size of the estates indicates, in 
some measure, the amount of labor that was available on 
each. 



106 MAUVLAND AS A IMtol'iniCTAi; V PROVINCE 

So well adapted to the raising of tobacco was the soil 
of most of these estates, that attempts to encourage the 
raising of other [)r(j(luets proved largely futile. So the 
quantity of tobacco grew with the increase of [)()pulation ; 
while the ease with which those escaped detection who 
mixed wortldess with good tobacco lowered the quality 
and created for the Maryland product a bad reputation. 
Furthermore, the several European wars at times endan- 
gered the carrying trade and decreased the demand. As 
a consequence, the price of tobacco fell from three pence 
per pound in lG-19 till the product became a drug on tlie 
market in 1G66 ; and because of the obstacles in the way 
of a proper regulation the price seldom rose above a penny 
per pound until after 1747, when those obstacles were at 
last overcome. 

The obstacles referred to arose from the fact tiiat wlien 
the supply exceeded the demand, or when the means of 
transportation was insuflicient, the large planter had a 
decided advantage over the small i)hinter. For since 
on so many of the estates there was a place at which 
vessels could be loaded, the province remained without 
any central market within its borders. Under such con- 
ditions the tobacco merchants found it more convenient 
to load their ships at the large })lautation ports. Or, if 
the difficulty arose from insufficient means of trans[)orta- 
tion, the large planter was the better able to provide him- 
self with the same from England. Also, when it seemed 
clear that the welfare of all demanded that the })roduction 
of the commodity should be limited, the large planter was 
the better able to deny himself in whatever way was 
tliouglit necessary to accomplish the desired end. Such 
conditions naturally encouraged jealousy on the part of 
the small toward the large planters. 

But this was not all. The prinei})al officers of the 



THE INDTSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 107 

province were chosen by the lord proprietor from the 
holders of the largest estates. Those same officers con- 
stituted the council of state and the upper house of the 
legislative Assembly ; and they were paid for their 
official services in tobacco. From 1671 to 1715 the pro- 
prietor was paid his quit-rents and alienation fines in the 
same commodity. Likewise, a perpetual act of 1702 re- 
quired that the clergy should be paid forty pounds of 
tobacco per poll. Hence, any movement for the purpose 
of keeping up tlie price of tobacco affected the support of 
the government. 

It is true that the members of the lower house were 
themselves quite large planters, that they were paid in 
tobacco for their service in Assembly, and, also, that most 
of them were paid in the same commodity for service as 
justices of the county court ; yet they could not with 
impunity disregard the wislies of that numerous constitu- 
ency of small planters. -\ 

By the year 1662 the problem, the solution of which 
the above circumstances were to make so difficult, had 
arisen not only in Maryland, but also in Virginia. In 
the following year commissioners from the two provinces 
met in response to instructions from the crown, in order 
to consider propositions for limiting the production of 
tobacco. At that meeting it was agreed to submit to the 
government of each province a proposal to prohibit the 
planting of tobacco after the twentieth of June.^ But 
that proposal was rejected in Maryland because it was 
feared that an agreement on such terms would be more 
favorable to the southern province. 

The first attempt having thus ended in failure, the 
governor and council of Virginia urged the executive of 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1030 to 1007, pp. 470, 477, 479, 480, 
503-510. 



108 MARYLAND A8 A I'Kol'lUKTA K V rUO\ INCE 

Maryland to give its support to a bill for a complete ces- 
sation, for one whole year, from planting tobacco in Mary- 
land, Virginia, and Carolina. By appearing in person 
before that executive, the governor and council of Vir- 
ginia obtained the promise of what had been refused 
when asked for throuoli a written message ; and in the year 
1667 the governor and the upper house of Maryland gave 
their strongest support to the bill providing for a ces- 
sation during that year. After the lower house had 
stated that it believed such a cessation would cause the 
province to be much depopulated and had refused to pass 
the bill, the governor requested a conference between the 
two houses. Although the conference was avoided by 
the lower house, on the ground that it would interfere 
with its freedom of debate, the several objections to the 
bill were sent to the ui)per house ; and after they had 
l)een answered the bill passed.^ 

But its passage caused such a clamor among the small 
planters that the speaker and several other members of 
the Assembly saw fit to petition the lord jjroprietor 
to disallow the act. The prayer of that petition was 
granted, and whiMi the \'irginiaiis made complaint against 
the lord proprietor, he gave the crown the following 
reasons for his disallowance of the said act : (1) that 
while the act was favorable to the ablest planters, " it 
tied up poor men's hands from working out their neces- 
sary livelihood ; (2) that it would tend to compel the 
poor planter to enter into new servitudes to the more 
rich to gain subsistence ; (3) that it would endanger the 
peace of the province by provoking peo[)le to sedition. ^ 
Thus ended in failure the first vigorous attempt to in- 

^ Proceedings and Acts of tlie General Assembly, 1(500 to lOTO, pp. 66, 
100-113. 

2 Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, pp. 5-9, 15-20. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 109 

crease the price of tobacco by a law for decreasing the 
supply. Another such attempt was not made until more 
than half a century later. 

The method of raising the price by improving the 
quality remained to be tried. Yet to accomplish that it 
was necessary to pass a law against concealing the bad 
among the good. And to enforce such a law it was nec- 
essary that the vast number of places of shipment should 
be reduced to a few ports duly appointed and constituted 
as such by a recognized authority ; and that an efficient 
inspection service should be provided at each of those 
ports. 

With the exception of an insufficient law, first passed 
in the year 1657, against mixing the ground, or bottom, 
leaves with good leaves, and against making second crop 
tobacco, no action was taken by any part of the govern- 
ment to preserve the quality of the product until after 
the failure of the act for the cessation from planting. 
But very soon after vetoing that act, the lord proprietor, 
in accordance with a right expressly conferred on him by 
the charter, instructed the governor to make, erect, con- 
stitute, and appoint ports. In response to that instruc- 
tion, the governor, in the year 1668, issued a proclamation 
which limited the number of places of shipment to thir- 
teen, nearly all of which were on some large estate. For 
shipping from any place other than one of the thirteen, 
the offender was to suffer the penalty of one year's im- 
prisonment.^ A similar proclamation was issued in 1669 
and in 1671. But it is clear that those proclamations did 
not well serve their purpose ; and in the year 1682 there 
was passed in the upper house a bill appointing places 
for ports. The bill was lost that year. But the next 
year after the lower house had declined to pass it, that 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1G67 to 1687-88, pp. 31, 32. 



110 iMAIlVLANI) AS A I'lK (IM! IKTAU V I'lK »V IN'CE 

body was called into the upper lionse and there so 
severely reprimanded by the lord }>roprietor, Charles 
Calvert, that the bill was passed the same day.^ Yet, 
although that bill became a law and appointed thirty 
places as ports, it was of no lasting force. Besides, there 
was still wanting a good law against deceitful packing. 
The first year that the port bill was introduced an 
attempt was made to supply that want ; and the upper 
house passed a bill, one clause of which read as follows : 
" That no 'planter presume to false pack any tobacco by 
putting therein any frost-bitten, ground leaves, or sec- 
onds, or worse tobacco in the middle, about or in any 
part of the hogshead than is at the head in open view, 
under a penalty of having every hogshead of tobacco so 
false packed as aforesaid burnt by the sheriff or other 
public officer, and the delinquent also to forfeit one thou- 
sand pounds of tobacco for every such default, one-half 
to go to the Right Honorable the Lord Proprietary, the 
other half to the informer who should sue for the same."^ 
For more than two weeks the lower house debated the 
provisions of this chiuse, but could come to no agreement. 
Conseqjiently the tobacco industry was suffered to lan- 
guish from want of regulation. 

During the period of royal government not only was 
no progress made toward regulating that industry, l)ut 
the poverty and distress of the i)lanters were increased by 
the European wars which caused the closing of markets 
and the loss of tobacco at sea. Only a few years after 
the restoration of the proprietary government the declin- 
ing condition of the tobacco trade created serious commo- 
tion. For it appeared that while Virginia had regulated 

• I'rocooiliugs anil Acts of the General Assembly, 1(178 to lOH;], pp. 
488, •l!t2. 

2 Jhiil.. pp. 2(;i. 208, 288, 3(37. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 111 

the trade so as to advance the price, the quality of the 
Maryland tobacco remained unimproved. An act of 
assembly passed in the year 1721 against trash and for 
limiting the time of sliipping could not have had much 
effect ; for in the year 1730 the governor said, " Trash 
is the greatest cancer to our staple." i There was such 
delay in preparing it for market that it lost much of its 
scent, freshness, and weight. Then, too, the common means 
of transporting the crop from the place of growth to the 
port of shipment was by the slow and laborious rolling of 
hogsheads. Justly, therefore, the merchants complained 
of the slavery imposed on their sailors by being " obliged 
to roll it from far to the water side." Further, in the 
year 1726, the governor, while speaking of tlie complaints 
of the merchants, said : " They observe that their ships 
lie here subject for many months to the injury of the 
worm, their sailors undergo such fatigue from tlie excess 
of heat and labor, that if not lessened in number they are 
at least abated in their ability to work the ships home, 
and that their ships arrive on the English coast in a 
stormy and dangerous season. If these inconveniences 
attend them in their shipping, they of course entail others 
on us. Leaky ships and bad weather must damage our 
tobacco, want of able hands endanger the loss of it ; and 
although it arrives in safety, yet it comes to a late mar- 
ket, which is generally a bad one."^ 

But although the tobacco industry remained in such a 
languishing condition, the situation, in one respect, liad 
changed from what it had been before the Revolution of 
1689. The upper, and not the lower, house was now on 
the defensive. The small planters and the lower house 
had become eager for laws designed to raise the price of 
tobacco. In 1726 the governor received petitions from 

1 L. H. J., May 21, 1730. 2 2,,ia., October 10, 172(5. 



112 MAKVLAND AS A I'i:< )l'i: I KT A 1! V I'ROVIXCE 

various parts of the province coinplaiiiiiig of the low 
state to which the tobacco culture was reduced, and desir- 
ing that the Assembly miglit be convened to consider 
some method of relief. In 1728 it was proposed in a 
seditious paper, posted up in Piince George's County, 
that those in favor of a tobacco law should arm themselves 
and drive the Assembly into the making of the desired 
l.iw.^ In 1730 the lower house held that a tobacco act 
was absolutely necessary to save the country from ruin.^ 
And in 1732 despair of the Assembly's j)assing the 
desired law induced a band of desperate characters to cut 
up tobacco. 

The great obstacle to the needed legislation lay in the 
fact that the lower house was scarcely less eager to reduce 
the fees of officers and the dues of the clergy than it was 
to save the tobacco industry. It held that an}- law which 
was designed to raise the price of tobacco should, in fair- 
ness to all, diminish the quantity to be paid to the officers 
and the clergy. In 1719 the lower house succeeded in 
having the fees of officers reduced about one-fourth ; but 
an attem})t. wliich was made five years later, to reduce 
them one-half was a failure. P^ees then continued with- 
out any accepted regulation from 1725 to 1733, when the 
lord proprietor's proclamation fixed them at the rates 
which had been prescribed by the law of 1719. The 
question of officers' fees thus became a hindrance to the 
])assage of a good tobacco law ; for so long as officers' 
fees were not subject to regulation by the Assembly, the 
value of those fees Avas almost sure to be increased by any 
law that advanced the price of tobacco. 

\V'ith respect to the dues of the clergy the case was 
at this time quite different. The loose morals of 
many of that profession had roused hostility and caused 

1 L. M. J., October 2(5, 1728. -Ibid., May 25, 1730. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 113 

general dissatisfaction with the perpetual law of 1702, 
which gave to the clergy forty pounds of tobacco per poll. 
Hence, the desire to defeat that law was doubtless a 
strong incentive for passing an act of assembly, in the 
year 1726, which would limit the number of tobacco 
plants and at the same time reduce the nominal dues of 
the clergy one-fourth. The pretence was made that the 
real value of those dues would not be diminished in con- 
sequence of such a law. But it was doubtless a just com- 
plaint of the clergy that their dues were usually paid 
with the poorest tobacco, and that this act was no remedy 
for that evil. Consequently, it became necessary for the 
lord proprietor to veto the act in order to prevent the 
clergy from laying the matter before the crown. ^ 

After that dissent, the situation had become such that 
for the lower house to pass a law designed to raise the 
price of tobacco would have been too much like a victory 
for the lord proprietor, his officers, and the clergy. It 
was not to be expected that anything but the greatest dis- 
tress would make the great majority of the people and the 
lower house submit to undergo any restraint that promised 
less advantage to them than to the lord proprietor, the 
officers, and the clergy, especially as this was a time of gen- 
eral antagonism to the government. That distress, however, 
had become alarming in 1730 ; and in response to the many 
loud clamors for a tobacco law, an act was passed that year 
which was similar to that of 1726, except that it provided 
for the payment in grain of one-fourth of the clergy's dues. 
But although the governor urged its continuance, that act 
was suffered to expire at the end of one year. In 1732 a 
bill for preventing the exportation of trashy and unmer- 
chantable tobacco failed to pass the lower house by a vote 
of twenty-one to twenty-six. Four years later a similar 

1 Perry, Papers relating to the Church in Maryland, pp. 262-283. 
1 



114 MAllVLANl) A8 A I'ROIMM HTAK V PROVINCE 

hill failed. So the province continued without any 
effective tobacco legislation. In addition to the friction 
between the dift'erent branches of the legislature, the few 
laws that had been made were so imperfect and so inade- 
(piate that their results gave no encouragement for fur- 
ther legislation. Those laws had been too much directed 
toward limiting the quantity and not enough toward 
improving the quality. 

But while Maryland was despairing of relief from any 
legislation, Virginia kept improving her tobacco laws, 
the final outcome of which was not only to furnish 
Maryland with an example, but also to bring that crisis 
upon her which is so clearly presented in a letter to the 
proprietor written by Daniel Dulany in 1743, and also, a 
little later, in an address to the proprietor which Dulany 
prepared for the governor and council. In that address 
it was stated that Maryland tobacco had lost its reputa- 
tion to such a degree that merchants were ordering their 
agents, settled in Maryland, to remove to Virginia. "To 
which place," the representation continaed, " we ex})('ct 
all or most of the tobacco buyers will soon resort ; because 
that although they give a nmch greater price there tliau 
they could buy here for, yet they are sure of purchasing 
better tobacco there than here. Great numbers of the in- 
habitants have been used to purchasing clothing and other 
necessaries of which they will soon become destitute. 

"By the advice from home, the French who usually 
purchased great quantities of our leaf tobacco, decline 
buying any of it, so long as they can be provided with 
Virginia tobacco. . . . We have but too much reason to 
apprehend that unless our staple is speedily put under 
some effectual regulation, the Virginians will get the 
whole trade into their hands, wherein they have already 
nuide a considerable progress. 



THE INDUSTUIAL DEVELOPMENT 115 

" If the difference we have mentioned arose from any 
difference of soil or climate, it would, perhaps, be in vain 
to attempt any regulation, or to hope that any that could 
be made would prove effectual ; but that is so far from 
being the case that we have really the advantage both in 
soil and climate, and the remedy of all the difficulties 
under which we labor is within our reach. 

" Our unhappy situation arises from this, that our 
people are under no kind of restraint, and the generality 
of them are unwilling to be under any which may have the 
least appearance of lessening the quantity of tobacco they 
make ; under which general denomination all manner of 
trash, though unfit for anything but manure, is included, 
and so intermixed with what is really merchantable as to 
render the whole of little value ; and in many instances 
has been so far from clearing the proprietors anything 
near what it cost them, that it has brought them in debt, 
and given Maryland tobacco in general a very bad char- 
acter at all the European markets." 

The representation next accounted for the failure of all 
past attempts to remedy the evil, and then concluded : — 

" Sometimes a short crop occasioned by the unseasonable- 
ness of the weather, or other accidents, has occasioned the 
rise of tobacco, which occasioned too many to think that 
not only a providential but the only remedy that could be 
reasonably hoped or expected ; which notion, however 
wild and extravagant, has contributed a good deal to fix 
an aversion in the generality of the common people, and, 
indeed, in too many of the representatives to any regula- 
tion at all. But now that the diihculties under which the 
country labors are increased, and that every individual 
person is sensible of them, and tliat those that have given 
themselves the trouble of inquiring into the success of the 
Virginia law are convinced of the necessity of some such 



116 MARYLAND AS A PKOI'KIKTAKY PROVINCE 

regulation here, and that witliout it tlie country is in 
apparent danger of being absolutely ruined, it is to be 
lioped that they would act so reasonably and be so much 
their own friends to use all means in tlieir power to avert 
the calamities with which the counti-y is threatened. 

"To the making an effectual regulation to this purpose, 
there is one great obstacle, and that is the specific pay- 
ments in tobacco which by the present laws the people are 
obliged to make to the clerg}-, officers, and lawyers. . . . 
The only expedient we can think of, or believe practica- 
ble, is the retrenching the tobacco payments, into which 
we believe that even the clergy themselves would volun- 
tarily come, notwithstanding the establishment in their 
favor ; and should the officers or practitioners of the law 
be less forward to contribute to the public good, it would 
render them odious to all mankind, and occasion the 
calamities of the country to be imputed to them, nor 
would the odium stop here. As to such of ourselves as 
are entitled by the offices we hold, or our profession, to 
the tobacco fees, we beg leave to assure your Lordship 
that we would most readily and cheerfully sacrifice part 
of our own income to the welfare of the country ; but in 
the present case we believe that we would be gainers if 
a proper regulation was to take place, as the value of 
what we should then receive would (in all probability) 
exceed what we can now hope for.'"^ 

Nothing less, then, than extreme danger of the country's 
I'uin was required to break down the obstacles to the long- 
needed tobacco legislation. Even then, some of the 
planters of the poorer sort opposed the i)assing of a law 
like that of Virginia, on the ground that the expense of 
executing it would make the taxes heavier than they could 
bear.2 But early in the year 1747 some freemen of Talbot 

iC.R., February 1, 1743. ^Maryland Gazette, April 1, 174U; April 28, 1747. 



THE INDUSTllIAL DEVP^LOPMEXT 117 

County pointed out to tlieir delegates the extreme neces- 
sity of improving the quality of Maryland tobacco and 
recommended the Virginia inspection act. At the same 
time, also, the need of such an act was much discussed in 
the columns of the Maryland Gazette. The arguments 
of those who were in favor of an inspection act were 
decidedly the stronger. The result was that in the ses- 
sion of assembly of that year greater harmony prevailed 
than had been known for years ; the officers, the lawyers, 
and the clergy agreed to the reduction of their fees ; the 
inspection act, modelled after that of Virginia, was passed 
with but little difficulty ; and at the breaking up of the 
session so intense was the general good feeling that the 
members of both houses drank twice to the success of 
the tobacco trade, the town guns were fired ten or eleven 
rounds, and the populace, having punch and wine distrib- 
uted among them, made loud acclamations of joy.^ 

The act was entitled, an act for amending the staple of 
tobacco, for preventing frauds in his Majesty's customs, 
and for the limitation of officers' fees. It provided for a 
warehouse, scales, and a wharf at each of eighty appointed 
places ; and no tobacco was to be exported before it had 
passed a carefully provided inspection at one of those 
warehouses. 

The disadvantage of having so many shipping places 
was still felt by some as a heavy burden. It was charged 
that the cost of eighty warehouses, eighty scales, and 
eighty wharves was ,£6400, and that the annual expense 
of the entire inspection service was X5780 ; whereas it 
was estimated, that if the eighty had been reduced to two, 
— one on each shore, — the annual expense would have 
been reduced to £966.2 Yet the price of tobacco per 
hundred pounds soon advanced from eight shillings and 

1 Maryland Gazette, July 14, 1747. '^Ibkl, July 12, 1753. 



118 MAKVLANl) AS A I'UOJ'UJETAItV I'KOVINCE 

less to twelve sliillings. While no liiuitution was im- 
posed as to quantity, the amount required to pay the fees 
of the olHcers, the lawyers, and tlie elergy was reduced 
twenty per cent. Moreover, the inspection encouraged 
the spirit of emulation among the planters, inducing them 
to offer prizes for tobacco of the best quality. Weight, 
substance, scent, size of the leaf, and neatness of packing 
were the elements considered by the judges who awarded 
tlie prize. One of the results was that, while the ordinary 
net weight of a liogshead had been less than 1000 pounds, 
in the year 1752 the net weight of a hogshead belonging 
to a man in Queen Anne's County was 1829 pounds ; and 
those who witnessed the inspection of it agreed that tliey 
never saw tobacco in better order.^ 

After the law had been in force three years, the lower 
house acknowledged the advantages derived from it, and 
expressed the hope that by amending and continuing it 
Maryland might become the home of a jjrosperous and 
flourishing people. With but little change, tlie act was 
contiiuicd and cherished as the most precious law of tlie 
l)rovince until 1770, when its loss, owing to another con- 
troversy over officers' fees and dues to the clergy, gave 
rise to the violence that followed ; and some measure of 
quiet was restored only after the revival of that act in 
1773, witli the omission of all provisions relating to offi- 
cers' fees and dues to the clergy. 

But a well-regulated tobacco industry was insuiru-ient 
to bring Maryland to her fullest and completest develop- 
ment, eitlier industrially or politically. All the land that 
was adapted to the raising of tobacco lay near tlie bay. 
The raising of nothing but tobacco soon exhausted the 
fertility of the soil. It was a long time l)efore all the 
tobacco land was taken up. Consetiuently, since land 

' Maryland Gazette, Augast 20, 1762. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 119 

was cheap, and new land produced a larger quantity and 
a superior quality of tobacco, the old was often abandoned 
to the weeds. ^ Instead of developing the resources of a 
country, such a process was destined rather to foster a 
careless and slovenly spirit, which even to-day hovers 
over the rural districts of southern Maryland. Again, 
the labor which the raising of tobacco required was ex- 
hausting, and created a demand for the African slave. 

P'urthermore, excess of attention to tobacco culture pre- 
vented the province from becoming self-sustaining, and 
hence, also, industrially independent. For the tobacco 
planter took little of the produce of his land to the towns 
within the province to exchange for articles of food and 
clothing of INIaryland production and manufacture. But, 
for a long time, to the planter's own port the English 
merchant sent his goods to be exchanged for tobacco. 
There was, therefore, little need for towns. Under such 
conditions it is not strange that the jjeople of Maryland 
continued so long to speak of England as their " home " ; 
for while raising little except tobacco, they scarcely made 
a home of their own within the province. 

The bay was for them a convenient highway for trans- 
portation and social intercourse. Consequently the mak- 
ing of roads was so largely neglected, that in several of 
the older counties a beginning has hardlj^ yet been made. 
Notice has already been taken of the inconveniences re- 
sulting from the disagreement with respect to the regula- 
tion of ferries. 

In the bay was a great abundance and a considerable 
variety of both sea food and water fowl. Although there 
were large numbers of horses, cattle, and swine within the 
province, yet, after having been branded as far as possible 
by their owners, the most of them were allowed to roam 

^Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 38. 



120 MAUVLA>;i) AS A PROPlUETAli V IMiOVlNCE 

half wild ill tlie backwoods with the numerous deer and 
wild turkey. Of slieei) there were few, because it was too 
troublesome to protect them from the wolves. 

Nature was too lavish with her gifts to the tobacco 
planters. She gave them too many ports, too much meat ; 
and as a consequence their environment became enervating 
rather than an incentive to progress. But with the re- 
markable variety of her soil and climate, and the richness 
of her mineral resources, there was no reason, from the 
industrial standpoint, why Maryland miglit not become a 
self-constituted wliole. The devel()})ment necessary to 
bring about such a condition Avas a long time beginning. 

As early as 1639 Secretary Lewger wrote to tlie pro- 
prietor about the progress that was being made toward 
providing the province, and more especially the proprie- 
tary manors, with cattle, swine, sheep, and poultry.^ In 
1663 Governor Charles Calvert wrote to the same pro- 
prietor, his father, the following : " As for setting up a 
farm of English grain, I have this year made a good step 
toward it, by sowing fifteen or sixteen bushels of wheat 
and ten or twelve bushels of oats, seven bushels of peas, 
eight or nine bushels of barley. And if the year prove 
seasonable, I doubt not but to have three hundred bushels 
of wheat increase. For last year in a spot of ground of 
two acres and a half I had above forty bushels of wheat, 
twelve bushels of oats, and eight or nine bushels of peas. 
And the straw of that preserved my young cattle in the 
hard weather, and kept me four liorses constantly in the 
stable in very good heart, when other horses were hardly 
able to do any service. The flax and hemp which your 
Lordship sent me was sown and begins now to come up, 
for which I return your Lordship my humble thanks." ^ 

During much of tlie seventeenth century there was an 

1 Calvert Papers, Mo. 1, p. 196. » Ibid., p. 246. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 121 

act of assembly requiring every tobacco planter to tend 
two acres of corn. From 1662 to 1666 an act of assembly, 
for encouraging the sowing of wheat, oats, rye, barley, and 
peas, fixed the price per bushel at which each should pass 
in payment of rent, and other dues. During most of the 
time from 1671 to 1776 there was in force an act of assem- 
bly which gave a bounty for raising hemp and flax or else 
fixed the price at which each should pass in payment of 
debts. In 1682 the legislature began a long-continued 
practice of offering premiums on tlie best manufactured 
pieces of linen. By act of that body, passed in the year 1765, 
each county court was to pay out yearly eight thousand 
pounds of tobacco in such prize money. For a short time, 
also, similar premiums were offered for the encouragement 
of woollen manufactures. In 1719 workers in iron began 
to receive some aid from legislative enactments. Finally, 
the act of assembly, by which the quit-rents and alienation 
fines were paid from 1717 to 1733, removed, during those 
years, the burden of rent from the non-tobacco-producing 
lands, and placed it all on the tobacco industry. 

In 1715 Governor Hart, in a speech to both houses of 
Assembly, said : "• The inhabitants of this province with a 
commendable industry use their best endeavors to culti- 
vate tobacco, but there still remain many spacious tracts 
of this fertile soil (especially on the eastern shore) which 
are not so agreeable to the nature of that passable plant, 
but exceedingly well adapted to the making of hemp. 
What of this kind has been hitherto only raised for a 
home consumption in the opinion of mariners equals the 
best that grows in Europe. An improvement of this 
manufacture is worthy your consideration."^ 

The great impetus to the development of the province 
was, however, to be given neither by legislative enact- 

iL. H. J., April 26, 1715. 



122 MARYLAND AS A PI101'1MI:TAKV PROVINCE 

ments nor by the making of liemp on the eastern shore, 
])nt through the opening, chiefly by tlie industrious Pala- 
tines, of the resources of the rich wlieat lands, and the iron 
mines of the middle west, in what became Frederick 
County. As early as 1710 some Palatines came into the 
province and settled in that county. Tlie legislative 
Assembly encouraged tliat movement by exempting them 
for the time being from the payment of all public levies.^ 
At about the same time a considerable number of the same 
nationality settled in Pennsylvania and Virginia. As a 
consequence of the intercourse betAveen them, the land of 
Frederick County, Maryland, liad, by tlie year 1721t, ])e- 
gun to attract the attention of large numbers.^ Then, 
partly in the interest of liis boundary dispute with the 
Penns, Charles Calvert gave the Palatines strong induce- 
ments to settle in his province ; that is, he offered two 
liundred acres of back lands to every family, and one 
hundred acres to every single person between the ages of 
fifteen and tliirty, who should settle thereon, requiring 
tlie payment not only of no purchase money whatever, but 
also of no quit-rent during the first three years after set- 
tlement. After the end of the three years they were to be 
charged an annual quit-rent of only four shillings sterling 
for every hundred acres. ^ In 1785 Daniel Diilany otTci-cd 
sufticiently favorable terms to induce about one hundred 
families recently arrived from the Palatinate to settle on 
some of his land in the same county. In 174U the })roprie- 
tor iiifonned the governor that a nunibcr (tf Palatines were 
soon to arrive, and instructed him to give them grants of 
land as far back as possil)le upon any terms he saw lit.'' 

iL. II. J., October 27, 1710. 

2 Scliultz, " First Settleineiits of Germans in Maryland." 

8C. K., March 2, 1732. 

* Tortfuliu 3, No. 14. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEV^ELOPMENT 123 

But the governor had already offered the same terms as 
those of the year 1732, except that purchase money of five 
pounds sterling per hundred acres was to be paid five 
years from date of settlement. 

Such favorable terms, and the productive soil, had the 
effect of drawing increasing numbers of people into those 
parts. In 1774 Frederick County had a population of 
nearly fifty thousand, or but little less than one-seventh 
of that of the whole province. 

The first results of the movement are indicated in a let- 
ter written in 1745 by Daniel Dulany to Samuel Ogle, in 
which the writer said, *•' You would be surprised to see 
how much the country is improved beyond the Mountains, 
especially by the Germans, who are the best people that 
can be to settle a wilderness ; and the fertility of the soil 
makes them ample amends for their industry." ^ Where 
tlie forests had been, there appeared the wheat fields. The 
influence of wheat raising in that county grew, and spread 
even to the eastern shore. In 1770 the Bordley wheat field 
of three hundred acres on Wye Island was an object of de- 
light to the wealthy men of the province. Moreover, in the 
year 1751 sixty wagon-loads of flaxseed came from the 
back settlements to the town of Baltimore within the space 
of only two days.^ 

At first the Germans used wagons and ploughs made en- 
tirely of wood. For a time their chief means of transpor- 
tation was on pack-horses through Indian trails. But it 
was not long before iron mines were discovered, furnaces 
and forges set up, and the manufacture of many useful 
implements begun. In 1749 there were eight furnaces for 
making pig-iron, and nine forges for making bar-iron.*'' 

As early as 1739 the making of public roads began in 

1 Dulany Papers. 2 Mart/land Gazette, October 30, 1751. 

3 C. R., December 13, 1749. 



124 MARYLAND AS A I'lM )1MII KTAltV I'ROV^INCE 

earnest. First, the county courts of Frederick and lialti- 
more counties became active in lliis particular. Tlicn, in 
1750, an order in council was issued which demanded the 
enforcement of the old law for the clearing, marking, and 
improving of roads. The following year the governor in 
his opening speech to the Assembly made a special effort to 
encourage a spirit of improvement in general, and urged 
the straightening of the highways in particular. Later, 
the General Assembly not only strengthened the law requir- 
ing work on the roads, but it loaned money to Baltimore, 
Frederick, and Anne Arundel counties for the purpose of 
assisting them to open, straighten, and widen their roads. 
The result of all this was that sometime before the prov- 
ince became a state, wagons drawn by two, four, six, or 
eight horses took the place of the pack-horses, and trans- 
ported produce and wares to and from the seaports and 
the growing towns of the interior. 

The change that had come may also be seen from the 
increase in trade. In 1G97 the board of trade was in- 
formed that all the laborers of Maryland were employed 
in planting tobacco, except coopers, carpenters, a few sail- 
ors, and a very small number of other artisans working at 
trades which had relation to tobacco. In 1731 there was 
but a small beginning in the excliange of lumber and grain 
for wine and molasses. The lower house in that year 
reported that the continuing of the people so long in "the 
old beaten track of raising tobacco " had made them in- 
capable of carrying on any considerable trade or manufac- 
ture ; and tliat only extreme want had driven some of the 
poorer inhabitants to the manufacture of coarse linens 
and woollens for their own particular use, without which 
they would have starved and gone naked. ^ 

But in 1749 al)out fifty vessels were owned by the 

1 U. II. J., August -JO, 1731. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 125 

inhabitants of the province. Although the trade was 
still chiefly in tobacco, the annual export of which was 
about 28,000 hogsheads, yet in that year the exports 
of wheat, corn, pig and bar iron, lumber, and furs were 
valued at £16,000 sterling. About twelve years later 
the quantity of exported tobacco had decreased rather 
than increased, while the value of other exports was 
reported to be =£90,000, or one-half the value of all tlie 
imports from Great Britain, among which exports were 
150,000 bushels .of wheat and 2000 tons of iron. But 
this was in the midst of the last intercolonial war. As 
early as 1753 an anonymous friend of the lord proprietor, 
but one who claimed that he took his figures from the 
custom-house books, stated that there were exported in 
that year 110,567 bushels of wheat, 154,7-11 bushels of 
corn, 6327 barrels of bread and flour, 475 barrels of pork, 
170 barrels of herring, 100 hogsheads and 100 bags of flax- 
seed, 2500 tons of pig-iron, 600 tons of bar-iron, 1,095,500 
staves and headings, and 200,000 shingles. ^ 

Moreover, besides that which was shipped from the 
province, the disadvantage still arising from having so 
many ports caused much produce to be carried to the 
large market at Philadelphia. " A great part of the 
wheat flour and other produce," wrote Governor Sharpe, 
in 1762, " is now carried to Philadelphia, tlie price there 
being always higher than in Maryland, owing to the vast 
trade carried on from thence to the West Indies and other 
parts. As the merchants there can always load tlieir 
vessels at once, they can afford to give more for the car- 
goes than merchants in tliis province can give, because 
ours must be a long time collecting a cargo for even a 
small vessel, there being no town or port in Mar3dand 
where any considerable quantity of country produce can 

1 rorlfolio 2, No. 7. 



126 MARYLAND AS A PKOPRIETARY PROVINCE 

be purchased at once. . . . The only means to remedy 
the evil would be to restrain the whole trade of the prov- 
ince to one or two ports — a scheme not likely to be 
relished by the Assembly." ^ But although the Assembly 
did not approve of such a scheme, the growing town of 
Baltimore was supplying that want, in large measure, be- 
fore the proprietary government was overthrown. 

Again, with the exception of a little copper coin and a 
very limited amount of Spanish coin, tobacco was almost 
the sole money of the province for the first one hundred 
years. So long as the trade in that commodity remained 
in such a low state, it poorly served as a circulating 
medium or as a standard of deferred payments, and was, 
therefore, a drawback to the progress of all the industries. 
Thus, in the year 1729, the governor wrote : " Wlien our 
tobacco is sold at home, whatever is the pi'oduct, it returns 
to us not in money, but is either converted into apparel, 
tools, or otlier conveniences of life, or else remains there 
as it were dead to us ; for where the staple of a country 
upon foreign sales yields no return of mone}- to circulate 
in such a country, the want of such a circulation must 
leave it almost inanimate : it is like a dead palsie on the 
public." 2 

It was tliis extremely stagnant condition of the trade 
that at last thoroughly aroused the people to a conscious- 
ness of their need of a different money, and in 1732-33 
prevailed with the Assembly to pass an act for issuing 
.£90,000 in paper currency. Fifteen years after its issue 
one-third of the whole amount was to be redeemed ; that 
is, at the end of the fifteen years all the old bills were to be 
called in, and on that occasion the holder was to be given, 
in exchange for the old, new bills equal to two-thirds the 

^ Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 72. 
■^ Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. C9 ct seq. 



THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 127 

amount of the old, while for the other third he was to be 
given sterling bills of exchange. Sixteen years later, or 
thirty-one years from the date of the first issue, the remain- 
ing two-thirds were to be redeemed, and on that occasion 
fifteen shillings sterling were to be paid for every twenty 
shillings of the currency. Finally, the act provided for 
the sinking fund by imposing a duty of fifteen pence on 
every hogshead of tobacco that was exported. 

For the first fifteen years, the continued low condition 
of the tobacco trade, the refusal of the upper house to pass 
a bill which proposed the payment of officers' fees and 
public dues in the paper currency, and the artifices of 
some traders, who found their interest to lie in the depre- 
ciation of those bills, reduced their credit so low that at 
times they exchanged at nearly fifty per cent below par.^ 
But the inspection act of 1747 greatly strengthened the 
security of the sinking fund. Only a little more than one 
year later the strict observance of that part of the act 
which required the sinking of one-third the amount of the 
bills raised still higher the credit of the remaining two- 
thirds.^ Thereafter, their exchange was never much 
below par. Furthermore, after the last of the bills had 
been redeemed, in the year 1764, it was found that of the 
fifteen-pence duty, and of the interest that had accrued on 
the bills of credit, there still remained to the credit of the 
province over £35,000, of which £25,000 were invested 
in English bank stock. ^ On the credit derived from that 
fund the province was thereafter enabled to float all the 
currency which the trade demanded, without the aid of 
an act to declare it a legal tender. As a consequence, 
instead of harm coming to Maryland from the act of Par- 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I. p. 45 et seq. 

2 Maryland Gazette, June 21, 1749. 

3 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 251. 



128 MAUVLANI) AS A PROPRIETAIIV PROVINCE 

liiiinent wliicli forbade any of the colonies to declare its 
paper currency to be a legal tender, it only caused the 
other colonies to borrow money of ^laryland. By this 
time, therefore, that which for a long time had been 
another obstacle in the way of industrial development was 
well removed. 

In conclusion, then, it is clear that the prolonged effort 
to regulate the tobacco industry, in which the support of 
the government was so largely involved, was an almost 
constant source of antagonism to the lord proprietor and 
his government. And, finally, after the lord proprietor's 
power had in large measure passed under the control 
of the popular branch of the legislature, the regulation 
of that industry by the inspection act, the settlement of 
Frederick County by the Palatines, and the assistance 
which was given to trade by the paper currency were not 
only pushing the province forward with rapid strides 
toward a self-constituted state, industrially independent 
of the mother country, but were also bringing it more 
and more under the influence of the strong popular sen- 
timent of Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 

While social conditions are always closely dependent 
on industrial conditions, they also have ranch to do in 
determining the political activity. Where the population 
is sparse, where men live apart from one another, or even 
in small isolated groups, with no facilities for intercourse, 
the social pressure will be low, and — even though the 
sense of individual freedom be strong — the political 
activity will be weak and sluggish. Bnt with the increast 
of population, Avith the coming of a diversified industrial 
activity, and with adequate facilities for intercourse, the 
strong sense of individual freedom will naturally develop 
into a vigorous political life. Then, with the divergence 
of the extremes between social classes, should the govern- 
ment attempt to infringe upon the people's rights to life 
or to property, the political life of an Anglo-Saxon people 
will become as intensely animated as if touched with a 
live coal. It is therefore important to ascertain to what 
extent the social conditions in the province of Maryland 
developed along these lines. 

During the seventeenth centnry nearly all the people 
were, as already stated, engaged in the cultivation of 
tobacco. Both large and small planters lived on their 
own plantations with a number of servants that was quite 
proportionate to the size of the estate. Outside of the 
small settlement of houses — only thirty in number as 
K 129 



130 MARYLAND AS A I'llOl'lllETAliV l'i:UVINCE 

late as the year 1678 — that were scattered for five miles 
along the shore, within tlie vicinity of the seat of govern- 
ment, town life was unknown.^ There were few mills 
and no factories. The trade was restricted to that which 
each planter carried on with the merchants of the mother 
country. There was an abundance of horses before the 
close of the century, and yet the lack of good roads was 
a hindrance to travel. More than ninety per cent of the 
people were Protestants, and yet until the last decade of 
the seventeenth century there were few Protestant ser- 
vices in wliich the people of that faith might have been 
united by a stronger religious and social bond. The de- 
pressing tendency of the tobacco culture and the remote- 
ness of habitations from one another, together with the 
religious differences, resulted in the failure to found any 
public schools wherein a common interest might have 
oeen centred or wlierein the social tie might have been 
knit among the children. Unlike what was the case in 
so many of the other colonies, the danger from the Indians 
was in Maryland insufficient to force the people together 
for protection. So, also, the absence of a state church and 
of public schools to support, the insignificant burden im- 
posed by the necessity for defence, the slight exijense 
incurred for the making of roads, for the erection of 
public buildings, or for the sake of any public improve- 
ments whatever, and the payment of so many of the 
civil officers in fees, left taxation so light tluit even it 
failed to arouse the strength of public sen^iiment tliat 
might otherwise have been expected. Finally, up to 
the close of this century, negro slave labor had been 
introduced to a very limited extent. The white servant 
was consequently well treated, and hence the feeling of 
personal freedom, whicli usually grows with the diver- 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1GG7 to 1687-88, p. 206. 



*■ ,THE SOCIAL DEVELOrMENT 131 

gence of extremes between social classes, was yet far from 
having attained its full strength. 

The seventeenth century was, however, not entirely 
destitute of the conditions that make for social develop- 
ment. The people were naturally hospitable and socially 
iiiclined. There was the long narrow bay with its many 
deep inlets and with the numerous navigable rivers flow- 
ing into it. In no small measure this body of water sup- 
j)lied the place of roads. For, as already observed, until 
after the close of this century a very large part of the 
habitations were near the water's edge ; and, therefore, 
water communication between them was not only easy 
but delightful. Moreover, from the waters of the bay 
Avere procured large quantities, as well as a considerable 
variety, of sea food and water fowl. The consequence was 
that, although town life was wanting, the bay supplied 
some of its socializing force. There were also, a few 
times each year, the sessions of the county courts, when 
many freemen were gathered at the county seats and given 
an opportunity for exchanging ideas. In the last half of 
the century the low price of tobacco, the lord proprietor's 
restriction of suffrage, his attempt to make the member- 
ship of the lower house such as lie desired, and to inter- 
fere with its freedom of action, and some other such acts 
of his, supplied the people with an increasing variety of 
subjects, the discussion of which could not fail to promote 
the development of political life. 

It required but another half century to bring about a 
social status that should make of the voters of Maryland 
a strong, active, and determined political body. By that 
time the industrial activity had become quickened and 
diversified, and the facilities for intercourse were rapidly 
increasing, as was seen in the last chapter. Then, too, 
the population increased from only 30,000 in the year 



132 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

1710 to over 160,000 in the year 1761. ^ To complete the 
picture a study of the social classes still remains. 

In the year 1663 Governor Charles Calvert wrote that 
the freemen of Maryland were " naturally inclined to love 
negroes whenever their purses would endure it."^ A 
scheme of his for importing each year from 100 to 200 
of tiiat race failed, however, because of the small 
number of large estates, and because of the high price of 
slaves and the low price of tobacco. For the same 
reasons, little of the labor was performed by slaves until 
after the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, which placed tlie 
trade in English hands. Even then, although the in- 
crease of slave population was quite rapid in several of 
the other colonies, in Maryland, owing to the very low 
condition of the tobacco industry, it was rather slow. 
Finally, however, after tl'iat industry was put on a better 
footing by the inspection act of 1747, the increase became 
rapid. Tlius, in the year after the passage of that act, 
the negro population was but 36,000 while in 1761 it 
was 49,675. They seem to have been fairiy well treated, 
and to have given but little trouble until their number 
began to increase so rapidly. But by the middle of the 
century a law had become necessary to prevent their 
tumultuous assembling and their burning of tobacco 
houses. Even with that law, a tobacco house was occa- 
sionally burned, plots were formed to rob or even to 
murder their masters, a master was now and then shot 
by one of his slaves, and criminal assaults committed by 
slaves were not rare. The burning of a tobacco house 
was punished with death ; the nuirderer of a master was 
hanged, and sometimes quartered.^ 

Next above the negro slave in the social scale were 

1 C. R., 1762. - Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 2^0. 

8 Maryland Gazette, April 17 ami July 30, 1751 ; July 23, 1752 ; April 20 
aud June 7, 1763. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 133 

the white servants of whom there were, nominally three 
classes ; namely, convicts, indented servants, and free- 
willers. The convicts were those who had been convicted 
of felony in the mother country, and sentenced to pass a 
term of seven years in some English colony. The most 
of them were unable to pay for their passage, and were 
therefore consigned to an agent, who sold their obligation 
to seven years' service for whatever price he could obtain. 

In the year 1767 it was estimated that for the past 
thirty years at least six hundred convicts a year had been 
imported.^ By the middle of the century it became nec- 
essary to pass an act of assembly, making the testimony of 
one convict good against another. In the face of that law 
the murders and robberies committed in the year 1751, by 
servants of that class, were alarming.^ So much so that 
the court of Baltimore County passed an order that good 
security of <£50 should be given for every convict im- 
ported into its borders ; and the court of Anne Arundel 
County passed a similar order. After the provincial court 
had set aside those orders, the Assembly, in the year 1769, 
passed an act requiring every master of a ship importing 
a felon to bring a transcript of the record of his conviction, 
requiring the person selling such felon to deliver the tran- 
script to the county clerk, and requiring the purchaser to 
go before a justice of the peace in his county and enter 
into recognizance for the sum of £20 currency, said 
recognizance to become void only after the convict had 
kept the peace during the time for which he was trans- 
ported or during his residence in the province. 

The convicts were not the only emigrants who had not 
the money — about £9 sterling — with which to pay for 

1 Maryland Gazette, July -SO, 1767. 

^Ibid., March 20, April 10 and 17, and August 14, 1751; also April 16, 
1752; and March 28, 1754. 



13-1 MARYLAND AS A I'K* )I'KI1':TA1; V I'UOVINCE 

their passii<^e. The agents of shipmasters, or of London 
and llristol merchants, were ever busy giving glowing 
and alluring accounts of the bliss that awaited those 
who were inclined to embark their fortunes in the New 
World. In numerous places they advertised the terms on 
which those who had no money could obtain passage. 
Those terms required that the emigrants should enter into 
articles of agreement to become a servant for from two to 
live years, — usually five, — and that upon arriving in the 
province his obligation to serve might be disposed of in a 
manner which was similar to that of the convict. Those who 
came over on such terms were known as indented servants. 

The free-willcrs came upon slightly different terms. 
They were given a few days after their arrival to engage 
tiu'ir services as they pleased, provided tlie parties with 
whom they engaged would advance the sum agreed upon 
for their pasinge. But if the newcomer did not succeed 
in making such an engagement within the time limited, 
then he was to be disposed of like the indented servants; 
and the fact that the most of them were doomed to disap- 
pointment in not finding the labor they sought, rendered 
the distinction between the indented servants and the 
free-willers little more than nominal.^ 

At the termination of his bondage each ser vant be came 
a freeman, entitled to fifty acres of land, a year's provi- 
sions, clothing, and tools. Until the introduction of slave 
lal)or on a large scale, servants seem to have been treated 
with but little severity, and many of them were suffi- 
ciently thrifty to become prosperous within a few years 
after their release. But after the negro slaves began to 
come in large numbers, the hardships of the white servants 
greatly increased. The treatment of the white servants, 

^ Those who came as indented servants or as free-willers are to-day 
spoken of as redeuiptioncrs. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 135 

in many cases, was doubtless worse than that of the slave. 
For, the negro being a slave for life, it was a considerable 
loss to his master to have his strength impaired while he 
was yet in his prime ; but in the case of the white servant 
the chances were generally good that he could endure 
harsh treatment and hard labor for the few years during 
which he was to be in bondage. Servants, as well as 
slaves, were forbidden by law to travel ten miles from 
home without a note from their master. Persons enter- 
taining or concealing such servants or slaves were to for- 
feit five hundred pounds of tobacco for every night or 
twenty-four hours of such concealment. The master was 
required to pay two hundred pounds of tobacco to him 
who took up his runaway servant or slave. The servant 
thus unlawfully absenting himself was required, when re- 
covered, to serve not exceeding ten days for every day's 
absence, — at the discretion of the county court, — and 
also by service to make good the cost of taking him up. 
On the other hand, however, masters not providing suffi- 
cient food, lodging, and clothing for their servants, bur- 
dening them beyond their strength, abusing them, or 
giving them above ten lashes for any one offence, without 
the permission of a magistrate, were subject to a fine not 
exceeding one thousand pounds of tobacco ; and if the 
master so offended three times the servant might be 
set free.^ Many cases between master and servant were 
heard in the county courts, and such cases were usually 
decided in favor of the master. In one of the last years 
of the proprietary period an eye-witness described the lot 
of the servants as follows : " Generally speaking, they groan 
beneath a worse than Egyptian bondage. By attempting 
to lighten the intolerable burthen, they often render it more 
insupportable. For real or imaginary causes, they fre- 

1 Laws of 1715. 



136 MAKVLAXL) AS A FKOPKIKTAKV PROVINCE 

quently attempt to escape ; 1)ut very few are successful, the 
country being intersected with rivers, and the utmost dili- 
gence observed in detecting [)ersons under suspicious cir- 
cumstances, who, when apprehended, are committed to close 
confinement, advertised and delivered to their respective 
masters, the party who detects the vagrant being entitled to 
a reward. Other incidental charges arise. The unhappy 
culprit is doomed to severe chastisement ; and a prolonga- 
tion of servitude is decreed in full proportion to expenses 
incurred, and supposed inconveniences resulting from a 
desertion of duty."^ 

It seems highly probable that there were many among 
those ill-used servants who did not prosper upon becom- 
ing freemen. At any rate, by the middle of the eighteenth 
century indigent freemen had become so numerous as to 
be felt as a heavy burden on the public. In the year 
1754, after (jovernor Shai'pc had called the attention of 
the Assembly to the great growth of this burden, a com- 
mittee of the lower house found that for the preceding 
year the several counties had allowed 647,027 pounds of 
tobacco for the support of the poor.^ Fourteen years 
later an act of assembly for the relief of thp poor pro- 
vided for the erection of an alms and a work house in each 
of several of the counties. 

Furthermore, prisoners for debt were numerous. As 
early as the year 1732 an act of assembly pro\ idcd iov the 
release of any such ])ris()ucr upon his delivering u}) his 
estate ui)on oath. During the last years of the proprietary 
period froni lifty to more than one hundred sui-h prisoners 
were released at every session of assembly. Finally, as 
their number became so great, an act for their more speedy 
release intrusted the matter to the county courts. 

1 Eddis, Letters from America, pp. fiJ^-SP. 

^Maryland Gazette, June (5, 1754 ; L. II. .1.. May 27, 1754. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 137 

Passing on now to the average freeman, if he had a mod- 
erate amount of property he was, nevertheless, decidedly 
uneducated if not illiterate. He was afforded little or no 
opportunity for a schooling. In the year 1671 the lower 
house amended a bill from the upper house for founding a 
school ; but, owing chietiy to the difference between the re- 
ligious faiths of the two houses, that bill was finally lost.^ 
Twelve years later, after the lord proprietor had written a 
letter in behalf of one Douglas, after he had recommended 
that a common school should be in some way founded and 
that Douglas should be the schoolmaster, the governor, 
in reply, mentioned the remoteness of habitations from 
one another, and stated that under the circumstances he 
did not believe the people were very desirous of that 
means of educating their children.^ Another writer has 
already pointed out that if at any time in the seventeenth 
century the Massachusetts law of 1647, which required 
every township of fifty householders to maintain a school 
for teaching children to read and write, had been enacted 
in Maryland, it would not have required the establish- 
ment of a single school, because no portion of the province 
was thickly enough settled to have fifty householders in 
an area equal to a New England township. 

, Francis Nicholson, who had been instrumental in the 
founding of the college of William and Mary in Virginia, 
sotrght in like manner to promote the cause of learning 
in Maryland, upon his becoming governor of that province. 
In the year 1695 he was so far successful as to get an act 
through the Assembly for the founding of one or more 
free schools, in which, among other branches, Latin and 

Greek were to be taught. A part of the funds necessary 
for carrying the act into execution were to be obtained 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1606 to 1676, pp. 262, 
26.'], 264. 2 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 286. 



138 MAllVLANU AS A PUUPItlETAKY PKOVINX'E 

,from a duty on imported liquors and from an export duty 
on furs and certain meats ; hut, in the main, those funds 
had to come from voluntary contributions. The governor 
subscribed £50 toward a building and £25 a year towaixl 
maintaining a master. The members of the council sub- 
scribed from one thousand to two thousand pounds of 
tobacco each ; and the several members of the lower 
house subscribed in all forty-five hundred pounds of 
tobacco, rians were laid for the founding of one such 
school on each shore, and it was probably the hope that 
before long one would be founded in each county. Hut 
before a buihUng was begun a quarrel arose between the 
governor and the lower house, and Governor Nicholson 
was succeeded by Governor Blackiston. The building of 
even one schoolhouse was, as a consequence, not com[)k'ted 
until the year 1701, when the subscriptions were sold at 
a discount and a school — known as King William's 
School — was opened at Annapolis. But even then the 
members of the lower house and their constituents took 
little interest in this school or in any other means of 
education. 1 
/ In the year 1714 Governor Hart complained to the 
' /Vssembly of the slender support that was given to tliis 
' one scliool, complained that the eastern shore was still 
without any school whatever ; and he declared it was 
a deplorable reflection that no better provision was made 
for education. 2 At the same time the clergy complained 
that the parish schools were very bad because there were 
no good schoolmasters. 3 Three years later the same gov- 
ernor upon the same subject pleaded with the Assembly, 
saying : " I have on several occasions recommended to 
you the absolute necessity of propagating learning in this 

1 L. H. J., May 13, 171;"), 2 /7„v;., October 6, 1714. 

8 U. II. J., June 23, 1714. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 139 

province by making some competent provision for schools, 
and I would be happy if there was a foundation for at 
least one in every county. But as yet there is but slender 
encouragement given, nay, the funds that are directed for 
the maintenance of schools are of so inconsiderable a value 
that, unless you think proper to make better provision 
for that pious and useful end, even the school at Annapo- 
lis, which begins to increase and flourish, must for want 
of due support be laid aside." ^ 

One great obstacle to a provision for education was the 
jealousy of one county toward another, and especially 
of those on the one shore toward those on the other. 
When the movement was made in Governor Nicholson's 
administration, the general plan seems to have provided 
for the founding of one school in each county within the 
near future. So, when it came to be felt that it would 
be a long time before the movement would result in the 
founding of so many schools, it lost support to such an 
extent that little interest was taken even in the school 
at Annapolis. But now Governor Hart was reviving 
the plan of founding a school in each county. He was 
doing this at a time when the feeling of Protestants 
against Catholics was stronger than ever, and, being him- 
self a zealous Protestant, he contended that the strength 
of Catholicism lay in the gross ignorance and superstition 

which prevailed. Under these circumstances, and when/ 

. ... I 

the importation of negro slaves was beginning to increase,; 

the Assembly passed an act for imposing an additional 

import duty of twenty shillings per poll on negro slaves 

and Irish Catholic servants, the proceeds of which were 

to be divided equally among the several counties for the , 

maintenance of one school in each. 

Furthermore, the governor led the Assembly to hope 

1 L. IL J., May 28, 1717. -^ 



140 MARYLAND AS A PROPlilETARY PROVINCE 

that upon the expiration of the act of parliament, which 
imposed a tobacco duty of one i^euny per hogshead for the 
sup[)()rt of the college of William and Mary in Virginia, 
Parliament might be prevailed upon to allow the proceeds 
from that duty to be applied toward the encouragement 
of learning in Maryland. The Assembly, acting in accord 
with the governor's advice, drew up an address to the 
lord proprietor, requesting him to present the matter to 
the crown. That address was an earnest plea in the 
interest of education. In it was shown a strong desire to 
strengthen Protestantism and to fit natives of the province 
for all the offices in both church and state.* Although 
the lord proprietor was obliged to inform the governor 
and the Assembly that the act of parliament for the sup- 
port of the Virginia college was a perpetual one, he prom- 
ised his own assistance to the cause of education.^ This 
was in the year 1719. The following year Governor Hart 
was succeeded by Governor Calvert. The Assembly, out 
of good-will toward Governor Hart, had given him an 
extra duty on tobacco of threepence per hogshead. The 
lord proprietor now proposed that one-half of this duty 
should be set apart for the support of schools. The lower 
house desired, instead, that the money arising on ordinary 
licenses should go toward that end. But the lord pro- 
prietor insisted that he and not the people had a right to 
that license money ; and so the lower house reluctantly 
assented to his proposal with respect to the application of 
the tobacco duty. 

The proceeds of the several duties were allowed to 
accumulate until the year 1723, when, at last, the Assem- 
bly passed an act for founding one school in each county. 
Fifty acres of woodland and fifty acres of pasture land 
were to be purchasecl for each school. The schoolmaster 
1 L. II. J., June 5, 17 lU. 2 /j^;.^ April, 1720. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 141 

was to have tlie use of the phantation, but was to raise no 
tobacco on it ; and besides this the act gave him but 
X20 ^er annum. He was to teach grammar, writing, and 
mathematics. 

But with the exception of those in Kent and Queen 
Anne's counties these schools were not a success. They 
suffered from want of public interest, and from poorly 
paid and incompetent teachers. Less than four years 
after they had been established it was necessary to pre- 
scribe a penalty for refusing to serve as a school officer. 
The one in Cecil County was so complete a failure that no 
trace of it is left. In the year 1745 the officers of the one 
in Talbot County offered a reward of £5 currency for the 
capture of their Irish schoolmaster, who had run away 
with two geldings and a negro slave. ^ In the year 1750 
the lower house declared that those schools were a failure. 
In the year 1763 Governor Sharpe wrote as follows, "It is 
really to be lamented that while such great things are 
done for the support of colleges and academies in the 
neighboring colonies, there is not in this even one good 
grammar school." ^ 

After it was so generally agreed that the county schools 
in no way answered the end for which they had been es- 
tablished, a movement was made to sell the property 
invested in them and to apply the proceeds of the sale, as 
well as tlie proceeds of the duties by which they had been 
maintained, toward the founding and the maintenance of 
two seminaries; that is. King William's School at An- 
napolis was to be made a seminary, the head-master of 
which was to be a master of arts from Cambridge ; while, 
on the eastern shore, another seminary was to be founded, 
the head-master of which was to be a master of arts from 

1 3Iaryland Gazette, August 16, 1745. 

2 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 115. 



142 MAKVLANI) AS A PllOI lUKTAKV PKOVINCE 

Oxford. Each institution was to be a college witli a 
l)reparat()i'y departniciit.^ This plan was an impracticable 
one. The funds which were to be provided would not 
have been hirge enougli for even one such institution, and 
the second one was suggested by nothing but rivalry 
between the two shores. After the bill for carrying the 
plan into execution had been published, it was never again 
brought before the Assembly. 

Four years later, however, the governor again urged that 
something be done. This time the lower house, by a vote of 
thirty-eight to thirteen, resolved that the county school fund 
should be a})plied toward the founding of one seminary. 
That house also ordered one of its couunittees to consider 
further ways and means of accom})lishing the desired end.^ 
But after the committee had proposed the money arising 
from licensing ferries and from an import duty of one 
penny per gallon on rum and wine, the matter was referred 
for further consideration to the next Assembly, and noth- 
ing more was heard of it for several years. 

By 1761 the majority in favor of selling the county 
school property was reduced ; and a motion of that year, 
to apply the county school fund and the proceeds of a 
proposed tax on carriage wheels and bachelors toward 
founding a college, was lost.^ But there was at this time 
in the city of Annapolis, on a lot of four acres, a vacant 
and unfinished house, which had originally been intended 
for the governor's mansion. After the money appropri- 
ated for the erection of it had been expended, the building 
was not yet enclosed ; and as the lower house would ap- 
propriate no more for that end, it had, up to this time, 
stood in that unfinished condition for seventeen years. 

' Maryland Gazette, August 1, 1750. 
2 L. IT. J., May IG and 21, 1754. 
8 I},id., April ;30 and May 5, 1761. 



J^'THEj^OCIAL DEVELOPMENT 143 

Furthermefe, it has been observed that back in Governor 
Hart's^dministration the lower house asked that the 
money arising on ordinary licenses should be applied 
toward the support of schools. Although for the past 
fifteen years the lord proprietor had permitted that money 
to be used for public purposes, — wholly military, — the 
question as to who had a right to it was yet undetermined. 
These were the circumstances under which the lower 
house now proposed to complete the unfinished executive 
mansion for a college hall and to apply the ordinary- 
license money, together with the proceeds of an import 
duty on wine and of a tax on carriage wheels, bachelors, 
card tables, and billiard tables, toward the maintenance of 
the college. 1 As tlie governor and a majority of the 
upper house felt tliat the lord proprietor had no valid claim 
to the ordinary-license money, they privately approved 
of this plan. 2 But upon Governor Sharpe's submitting it 
to the lord proprietor's secretary, that gentleman, with a 
mind ordinarily chaotic, flew into a passion, and so much 
heat was generated that it seems to have melted some of 
his speech. Thus, he said: "Can they constitutionally 
do it, to take his Lordship's property given with generos- 
ity and a sufficient tract of land whereon the House Gov- 
ernor's and Proprietor's House stands by their request 
yielded to and given and not finished by them from con- 
tumely, have they any plea to shittlecock his Lordship's 
property when or how they please ? feign charity, a school 
academy, an unnecessary expense during the infancy of 
the colony, before ignorance in general by foundations to 
improve by Grammar and common Arithmetic and this 
their scheme with affrontery without any remonstrance to 
yield to his Complyance their Lord Paramount, send to 

iL. H. J., May 6, 17G1. 

2 Sharpe's Correspondeuce, Vol. Ill, pp. 125, 126. 



144 MARYLAND AS A PROPKIKTAKY PROVINCE 

him for liis right ad libitum with us, tlie essence of your 
Legislature and administration of your government I con- 
ceived such conduct with violence assumed has nor can 
have any tendency but that of annihilating with him all 
right. Honor, and Dignity, rendering him low and con- 
temptible with reproach not fit to govern."'^ 

So failed another attempt to found a college. Only a 
few years later the lord proprietor was forced to give up 
his claim to the ordinary-license money, and very soon 
after the overthrow of his government the long-neglected 
house was completed for a college hall. But, until that 
overthrow, the only advance along educational lines was 
that which was begun in the year 1772 when some free- 
men of the counties of St. Mary's, Calvert, Charles, and 
Prince George's proposed that the county schools of those 
four counties should be united. ^ Subscriptions were raised 
for further increasing the funds ; and although this move- 
ment lost the support of Calvert County, it resulted in the 
founding, in the year 1774, of Charlotte Hall at Cool 
Springs in St. Mary's County.^ 

The facilities which the province of Maryland offered 
for obtaining an education were, therefore, decidedly poor. 
The county schools amounted to little or nothing. The 
parish schools seem to have been equally bad. Upon the 
death of Benedict Leonard Calvert, in the year 1730, King 
William's School was left a donation amounting to £40 
per annum ; and yet the instruction given in that school 
does not seem to have risen to an}- high degree of excel- 
lence. There was no college. And probably the best 
school in the province was the private one for teaching 
Latin and Greek, which was kept by Rev. Thomas Cra- 

1 Sharpens Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 146. 

2 Martjland Uazclte, July 30, November 5. 1772. 

3 Laws of 1774. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 145 

dock of Baltimore County. The writer of an article 
published in the Maryland Gazette, in the year 1773, ex- 
pressed his regret for the want of learning in the follow- 
ing words : " Even in private affairs the inconveniences 
and mischiefs flowing from the ignorance and barbarism 
of the commonalit}^ are severely felt by society. But 
these are trifles light as air when compared to the more 
fatal errors, which may be committed in the public walks 
of life, through a shameful deficiency of general knowl- 
edge." ^ 

Nevertheless, eighteenth century Maryland had her 
educated men. The ceaseless agitation of the educational 
question would indicate this. Some received their educa- 
tion in the mother country before coming to the province. 
As early as the year 1754 there were at least one hun- 
dred Maryland students in the academy at Philadelphia. ^ 
Others attended the college of William and Mary in Vir- 
ginia. The sons of the most wealthy Protestants were 
sent to the universities of England, while several of the 
Catholic youths were educated in France. 

The consequence was that the favored few had better 
educational advantages than the united efforts of the 
province could have provided. Those who were educated 
in Philadelphia were surrounded by an atmosphere in 
which democratic and liberty-loving sentiments were 
especially strong. Moreover, the spirit of rivalry among 
the educated Marylanders was more vigorous than it 
would have been had they all been taught in the same 
school. 

But what went still further toward making the educated 
men a power in political affairs was the fact that the most 
of them were lawyers. The people were strongly inclined 
to litigation ; but the clergy of the Established Church were 

1 Maryland Gazette, November 4, 1773. ^ jfjid^ March 21, 1754. 



146 MARYLAND AS A rRUl'UI lOTAItY I'UOVINCE 

in disrepute; country life' in ;i licaltlifiil climate caused 
the physician to bo little in demand ; the teacher was 
given no chance ; and the country was too young for 
literature and art. As it was for the interest of the law- 
yer to stand up for the political rights of the people, it 
was natural that many of that profession should tind their 
way into the lower house of Assembly. In the course of 
the last controversy between the two houses, the govern- 
ment party denounced the lawyers in strong terms and 
ascribed the whole trouble to the presence of so large a 
number of them in the lower house. One of the party, in 
particular, was speaking of the lawyers when he said: 
"•To gain the voice of the people, to mislead their judg- 
ment, and to render them the tools wherewitli to execute 
their vile and infamous purposes they put on the mask of 
patriotism ; declare vehemently against public measures ; 
stigmatize their rulers by the most unjust and villanous 
accusations, and set themselves up as the only men capa- 
ble of saving or reforming the state. The most minute 
errors in administration are construed into premeditated 
designs against the liberties of the people ; they prognos- 
ticate dangers which they do not believe ; and seem to 
dread events, they are conscious, can never happen." ^ But 
the more impartial judge of their conduct said : " They 
anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the griev- 
ance by the badness of the principle. They augur mis- 
government at a distance, and snuff the approach of 
tyranny in every tainted breeze." 

Finally, if the ignorance of the connnon people enabled 
the lawyers to have greater power over them, the wealth 
and luxury enjoyed by the public officers made those com- 
mon people more suspicious of the government and still 
further strengthened the alliance between the lawyers and 

1 JJdryland Gazette, May 13, 1773. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 147 

the people. It was no difficult matter, therefore, to make 
them feel that they were being fleeced in order to enable 
their rulers to live with affluence in a fashionable society. 
The city of Annapolis was by the middle of the eighteenth 
century a social centre of some importance. The French 
hairdresser was in good demand. The high headgear of 
the ladies, the powdered periwigs of the gentlemen, the 
rich laces, silks, velvets, and gay colored costumes of both 
ladies and gentlemen followed closely the latest fashions 
of the mother country, and, with an unsparing use of the 
stay, gave to social circles a dignified and courtly charm. 
Chariots of rare elegance, the coach and four, and the 
sedan chair moved along the highways. The finest resi- 
dences have been described as remarkable for their large 
size and striking appearance. The tables of the most 
wealthy were adorned with plate and cut glass, and even 
profusely provided with choice wines, meats, and dainties. 
The members of this society were cultured, refined, and 
polished. Special mention of the charm of the ladies on 
social occasions has been made by more than one eye-wit- 
ness. In the year 1770, one of tliose witnesses wrote, 
" I am persuaded there is not a town in England of the 
same size as Annapolis, which can boast a greater number 
of fashionable and handsome women, and were I not satis- 
fied to the contrary, I should suppose that the majority of 
our belles possessed every advantage of a long and familiar 
intercourse with the manners and habits of London." ^ 
Three years later the same witness again wrote : " It is 
but justice to confess that the American ladies possess a 
natural ease and elegance in the whole of their deport- 
ment ; and that while they assiduously cultivate external 
accomplishments, they are still anxiously attentive to the 
more important embellishments of the mind. In conver- 

1 Eddis, p. 31. 



148 MARYLAND AS A PROPKIETAKY PROVINCE 

sation tliey are generally animated and entertaining, and 
deliver their sentiments with affability and propriety." 

Nor was there a want of oi)portunity for social display. 
There were several fashionable balls each winter, and 
there were similar balls on a few state occasions. Further- 
more, the theatre became so great a success as to arouse 
no little enthusiasm. The wits of two literary clubs pro- 
voked pleasing smiles, if not loud laughter. The pleas- 
ures of the fox hunt were seemingly boundless. With 
respect to horse racing one wrote : " Our races, wdiich are 
just concluded, continued four da3s, and afforded excellent 
amusement to those who are attached to the pleasures of 
the turf ; and surprising as it may appear, I assure you 
there are few meetings hi England better attended or 
where more capital horses are exhibited. In order to 
encourage the breed of this noble animal, a jocky club has 
been instituted, consisting of many principal gentlemen, 
in this and the adjacent provinces, many of whom have 
inijiorted from Iiritain, at a very great expense, horses of 
high rei)utation." ^ 

I^y the time this society had become truly magnificent 
for so young a country it had come to pass that the 
members of one family were holding most of the principal 
offices below the governor : the governor was a brother-in- 
law of the lord proprietor ; the governor and the members 
of that one family were leaders in society ; and, at the 
same time, it was known that in addition to the large sum 
of money which was yearly drained from the province to 
pay the lord proprietor his territorial revenue, the prin- 
cipal oihce-holders were obliged to give the lord proprie- 
tor's secretary, who resided in England, <£G00 sterling per 
annum out of their income. 

Before the end of the pr(^prietary period, therefore, the 

1 Eddis, pp. 100, 107. 



THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 149 

facilities for intercourse had been provided, the extremes 
of social classes had been far extended, and a large part 
of the educated class was arousing and directing the 
opposition of the ignorant commonalty against a small 
body of office-holders and society leaders that were closely 
united by the ties of kinship. 



PART II 

GOVERNMENT 



CHAPTER I 

THE EXECUTIVE 

In the light of what has thus far been presented, the 
organization and the development of the government may 
now be made intelligible. The analysis of the charter 
has shown that the lord proprietor was originally placed 
at the fountain head of every department of government. 
To him alone was power granted by the king. He was 
given the sole right of creating offices, of appointing 
officers, of delegating to each such powers as he deemed 
expedient, and of directing them, from time to time, in 
the performance of their duties. 

Immediately under the lord proprietor was, first, the 
governor, and then the other great executive officers, all 
serving in response to their lord's appointment during his 
pleasure. Farther down the scale were the minor officers, 
usually appointed and instructed by some one of their 
immediate superiors, but, likewise, appointed only during 
pleasure. In this manner, as in any real kingdom, power 
was transmitted from above downward, and all officers 
kept dependent on the lord proprietor. 

With the exception of the years from 1675 to 1684, and 
the year 1732—33, the lord proprietor and his secretary 
resided in England. But all the other officers resided 
in the province. The greatest of them were the gov- 
ernor and chancellor, the members of the council of state, 
the secretary, the commissary general, the two judges of 
the land office, and the attorney general. Chief among the 

153 



154 MAUVLAND AS A pnopi;i i:tai;y imiovince 

minor officers were a sheriff, a deputy commissary, several 
justices, and a clerk for each county, a treasurer for each 
shore, and a naval officer for each of five districts. Still 
lower in rank were the constable of the hundred, and the 
overseer of the highway precinct. 

During the entire proprietary period, six persons bore 
in succession the title of lord proprietor. But the third 
and the last bore it for so short a time that it is not worth 
while to make mention of them here. The other four 
were : Cecilius Calvert, 1032 to 1675 ; Charles Calvert, 
1675 to 1715 ; Charles Calvert, 1715 to 1751 ; and Fred- 
erick Calvert, 1751 to 1773. 

The father of Cecilius was the first Lord Baltimore, 
who, at one time, was a chief secretary of state under 
James I and highly esteemed by Robert Cecil for his 
knowledge and penetration into state affairs. The wife 
of Cecilius was the eldest daughter of Thomas Arundel, 
one of the most influential of the Roman Catholic noble- 
men in England. In the year 1634 Cecilius became a 
member of Parliament. Both the form and the contents 
of his several commissions and instructions relative to the 
government of Maryland indicate that he was a trained 
administrator, well versed in English hiw. On several 
occasions his correspondence and instructions show his 
firmness ; and yet, while he never was disposed to make 
unnecessary concessions, he was so discreet and so politic 
that he yielded when by so doing he might prevent a 
dangerous uprising. AltliQugh he never visited the prov- 
ince, he was deeply interested not only in the success of 
its government, but in its industrial development. It was 
the object of his careful thongiit and attention ; and it 
has been estimated that he expended upon it, from time 
to time, X40,00<) sterling, from which he could have re- 
ceived but small i-eturns. 



THE EXECUTIVE 155 

Charles, the second lord proprietor, had been governor 
of the province fourteen years before succeeding his 
father, Cecilius ; and with the exception of a visit to Eng- 
land in the year 1676, he resided in the province nearly 
nine years after becoming lord proprietor. He appears to 
have given his father much satisfaction during his service 
as governor. He certainly was a busy, industrious man, 
with a strong personality and considerable hard business 
tact. But he was irritable, contentions, tenacious, greedy 
of private gain, and more interested in introducing slave 
labor than in elevating the level of humanity by encour- 
aging such institutions as schools and churches. He was 
at one time annoyed by a report tliat he was so stingy as 
to be in danger of starving. He was intent upon sup- 
pressing all opposition, Ijut not being a leader of men he 
endeavored to accomplish his end by force and intrigue. 
As a consequence of succeeding his uncle, Philip Calvert, 
as governor soon after the suppression of the Fendall 
rebellion, a bitter jealousy arose between nephew and 
uncle, so that at one time Charles complained that 
Philip was trying to draw the affections of the people 
from him.' Cliarles married the widow of Secretary 
Henry Sewall, to whom had been granted two manors : 
one of five thousand acres, and another of one thousand 
acres ; and the five children of the widow seem to have 
been married with the design of gaining for the gov- 
ernment the strongest possible support that could be 
based on kinship.^ He, however, failed to govern suc- 
cessfully and aroused such opposition that the govern- 
ment was taken from him. Yet after its loss he continued 
to his last years to contend vigorously for his territorial 
rights. 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 251. 

2 Sparks, "Causes of the Maryland Revolution of 1G89." 



156 MARYLAND AS A PROPllIETAKY PROVINCE 

Charles, the fourth lord proprietor, bore a tarnished 
reputation in England because of the part he played in 
disgraceful intrigues with the Prince of Wales. Yet 
during a tour on the Continent he nuide a favorable im- 
pression on a man of no less renoAvn than F'rederick the 
Great. In 1734 he became a member of Parliament and 
later was appointed Junior Lord of the Admiralty. He 
was doubtless a man of many accomplishments, easy and 
graceful in speech and general bearing. But his intellect 
was shallow, and he greatly overestimated his own impor- 
tance. He became lord proprietor when he was but six- 
teen years of age ; and although he had a guardian, the 
executive within the province was weaker and more neg- 
lected during his administration than at any other time. 
The members of the council of state Avere left with insuf- 
ficient reward for their services. Until the appointment 
of Governor Bladen, in 1742, the authority delegated to 
the governor was restricted only to a very limited extent ; 
and the correspondence between governor and lord pro- 
prietor seems to have been surprisingly small in amount. 
Nevertheless, Charles was tenacious of his rights and un- 
willing to make any compromise until after a contest had 
been long continued. His failure to instruct the gov- 
ernor was in part made up by his own veto of several 
acts of assembly, until the opposition, aroused in conse- 
quence of these, made it dangerous for him to exercise 
that right. Finally, during his visit to tlie province in 
1732-38, mainly for the })urpose of settling the boundary 
dispute with the Penns, he was quite successful in remov- 
ing the disorder into which the government had fallen ; 
and his liberal offer then first made to the Palatines 
resulted in the beginning of the larger development of 
the province. 

Frederick, the fifth lord ju-oprietor, was the most con- 



THE EXECUTIVE 157 

ceited of them all, yet he was a man of still less worth 
than his immediate predecessor. His aspirations to be an 
author made him a laughing stock. He had the reputa- 
tion of being a libertine. In 1768 he was indicted for an 
infamous crime. Although justly acquitted, the charge 
seems to have banished from the province what little 
respect for him had lingered there. He seemed desirous 
of getting all the money he could from the province in 
order that he might win and retain, by means of that 
money, the flattery of those who like himself were seek- 
ing the ephemeral pleasures of life. Still, his desire to 
avoid the charge of oppressing his Maryland tenant 
caused him to be somewhat lenient and to make conce.s- 
sions. He was moderate, smooth, clear, and, occasionally, 
somewhat ingenious in his messages to the governor and 
the Assembly. But with the exception of providing 
some of his favorites with lucrative appointments, he 
seems to have been little interested in affairs pertaining 
solely to the government, and left them largely to the 
care of his secretary, who, until 1766, was his uncle, 
Cecilius Calvert, and after that, Hugh Hamersly. 

Secretary Calvei't, to whom was intrusted so largely 
the proprietary interests, at once endeavored to make him- 
self more important than the governor. He was a man 
whose active mind exhibited a rare mixture of shrewdness 
and confused thinking ; and the opposition of the anti-gov- 
ernment party occasionally kindled his wrath, or aroused 
his indignation to a high pitch. The large interference 
of Frederick in making appointments, and the desire of 
Secretary Calvert to exercise his authority, resulted in too 
great a reduction of the governor's patronage and power. 
However, after Secretary Calvert had been succeeded by 
Secretary Hamersly, and Governor Sharpe by Governor 
Eden, that evil was removed, because tlie governor was 



158 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETAKV I'KOVINCE 

then bound to the lord proprietor by as close a tie of kin- 
ship as was the secretary. 

During the few years when the lord proprietor was in 
the province, he administered tlie government in person ; 
but at other times a governor, as his representative, was 
the chief administrator of that government. According 
to the original nature of the proprietary system, tlie gov- 
ernor was to be kept entirely dependent on his chief, while 
all other officers were to be subservient to both lord pro- 
prietor and governor. The governor was appointed only 
during the pleasure of his chief, who instructed him from 
time to time in the performance of his duties.? From the 
year 1G48 he was made to swear that he would accept no 
office, relating to the government of the province, from 
any other person or authority than that of the lord })r()- 
prietor, whom he also swore to counsel and advise as oica- 
sion should require for the best interests of the province.^ 
The journals of l)oth liouses of Assembly, as well as an 
account of all other important transactions of the govein- 
ment, the governor was expected to transmit to the lord 
proprietor. 

It was, hoAvever, not entirely through the governor that 
the lord proprietor exercised his control over the govern- 
ment. For the lord proprietor not only reserved to him- 
self the privilege of appointing the members of the council, 
the commissary general, the judges of the land office, and 
the attorney general, but he defined their powers and 
duties, occasionally gave instructions to thom, and received 
information from them concerning the affairs of the prov- 
ince. At one time he valued such information received 
from the attorney general more than tliat received from the 
governor. 2 Furthermore, on critical occasions, or when- 

1 rrocecdings of the Council, 1G36 to 1GG7, p. 209 et seq. 
^Dulany Tapers. 



THE EXECUTIVE 159 

ever some great controversy arose, important communica- 
tions passed between the lord proprietor on the one side, 
and tlie lower house, both houses conjointly, or the gov- 
ernor and council on the other. Finally, the lord proprie- 
tor reserved the right of vetoing any act of assembly, 
even after it had been assented to by the governor. 

On the other hand, after the restoration of the proprie- 
tary government in 1715, the governor was made respon- 
sible, not only to the lord proprietor, but also, to some 
extent to the crown. For from that time the lord pro- 
prietor's appointment of a governor had to meet the 
approval of the crown. From that time, also, the gov- 
ernor was instructed in detail by the crown, with respect 
to the enforcement of the laws of trade, and put under 
oath and bond to observe such instructions ; and during 
the intercolonial wars the governor received directions 
from the home government with respect to the raising of 
men and supplies. 

Nevertheless, although the governor Avas made so depend- 
ent on the lord proprietor, although the proprietor exercised 
his powei's through other channels than that of the gov- 
ernor, and although the governor became in a measure 
responsible to the crown, it was mainly to the governor 
that the proprietor delegated all those monarchical powers 
which the charter had conferred on himself. It was also 
mainl}^ to the governor that the proprietor issued his 
instructions. 

As military chief the governor was made lieutenant gen- 
eral and admiral, and empowered to do whatever was nec- 
essary for the defence of the province or tJie suppression 
of rebellion. He was, therefore, authorized to be the 
military organizer and commander both by land and by 
sea. 

As chancellor, he was keeper of the proprietor's seal, and 



160 MARYLAND AS A PROPRrETAHV PROVINCE 

issued all grants of land, all commissions for olBce, all 
pardons, licenses, writs, and proclamations. 

As chief magistrate, he was given power to appoint all 
necessary officers for the preservation of the peace and 
the administration of justice, power to issue and enforce 
ordinances, power to establish ports, markets, and fairs, 
power to pardon offences (except for high treason) and 
remit fines, and, finally, power to execute all other meas- 
ures necessary to good government. 

As the head or constituent part of the legislature, he 
could summon the freemen to legislative Assembly, pre- 
pare laws for the consideration of that Assembly, assent 
to bills and enact them into laws in the lord proprietor's 
name, and adjourn, prorogue, and dissolve the Assembly. 

And as chief justice during the first proprietary period, 
he played an important role in the hearing, judging, and 
awarding execution in both civil and criminal cases.^ 

Previous to the Revolution of 1689, the governor was 
authorized to appoint a substitute at his deutli or during 
his necessary absence from the province ; and that author- 
ity was exercised on several occasions. But after 1715 
the president of the council was to serve as substitute 
when there was no governor, which, however, happened 
but once, and then onl}' from May, lTo2, until March, 
1753. 

Within the province the governor was, therefore, the 
centre from which proceeded the military, the administra- 
tive, and the judicial authority, and, in large measure, also, 
the legislative activity. 

Although the lord proprietor reserved to himself the 
right of appointing the members of the council of state 
and the other leading officers, those ai^pointments were 
usually made in accordance with tlu' governor's recora- 

1 Proceedings of the Council. ](yP>C< {o 1007, pp. 40, 135, 139, 323. 



THE EXECUTIVE 161 

mendations. But after the threatening clamor of the 
opposition had caused the lord proprietor to refrain from 
exercising his veto power, his instructions bound the 
governor much more closely until tlie administration of 
Governor Eden. 

Until after 1732 the governor was usually allowed wide 
discretion. His instructions were, in large measure, con- 
lined to directions relating to territorial affairs and the 
appointment of officers, or forbade him to assent to any 
act that would be an encroachment on the lord proprie- 
tor's prerogative, that would alter the constitution of an 
office, or that would interfere with some favorite law. 

But in 1743 the lord proprietor instructed Governor 
Bladen to assent to no law that might in any manner 
weaken the power and authority of the government, stated 
the conditions that should be complied with before he 
should assent to certain acts, and, in conclusion, said, 
" And if anything of very great consequence comes under 
your consideration, suspend doing anything till you have 
acquainted me with it and received my directions." ^ 
Besides the numerous special instructions sent to Gov- 
ernor Sharpe his standing instructions directed : that he 
should recommend for vacancies in the council, but make 
no appointment until the number was below seven, and 
then such appointment to be subject to the approval or 
disapproval of the lord proprietor ; that his appointment 
to any office should be provisional only ; that he should 
act in strict conformity with the charter ; that he should 
give his assent to no act of an unusual or extraordinary 
nature and importance which might be prejudicial to the 
lord proprietor's charter prerogative or the property of 
his Majesty's subjects, without the insertion of a clause to 
suspend the execution of the act till the lord proprietor's 

C. R., March 26, 1743. 



1G2 MAKVLANI) AS A IMM )I'K I KTA K V PROVINCE 

assent was known ; that he shouhl suffer no act to pass 
that introduced the English statutes in gross, that inter- 
fered with the law of 1702 providing for the clergy, or 
that divitU'd a parisli without tlie incumbent's consent ; 
that he should suffer uo private act to pass without giving 
the person con(;erned a chance to make his defence ; that 
he should pass no act relating to the paper currency 
without a suspeudiug clause ; that only one matter should 
be provided for by the same bill, or at least that there 
should be no riders, or any provision foreign to the title ; 
that no schoolmaster should be allowed to teach without 
having first obtained the lord proprietor's license ; that 
the lord proprietor should be given notice of every va- 
cancy in church livings; that the instructions to all pre- 
vious governors should be conformed to in so far as they 
were not altered by the present or later instructions ; that 
accounts of all ini])ortant transactions should be sent to 
the lord proprietor and to Secretary Calvert, and that the 
above instructions should be entered in the council 
book.^ 

But after it had become clear that the lord proprietor 
was seeking to prevent undesirable legislation b}' instruc- 
tions instead of by exercising his veto power, the oppo- 
sition was not to be silenced by such a change of tactics. 
Instead of the veto, the instruction became the object of 
attack. Moreover, while the veto had necessarily been 
made public, an instruction might, in many cases, be kept 
private. Hence it became easy to ascribe the defeat of 
any favorite bill of the lower house to some "unreason- 
able instruction of his Lordship's."- First, the anti-gov- 
ernment members of the lower house murmured among 
their constituents against such instructions. Then, in 

iC. R.. March 17, 1753. 

2 Sbarpe's CoiTespuiidence, Vol. Ill, p. 52. 



THE EXECUTIVE 1G3 

1762, the complaint was for the first time inserted in a 
message from the lower to the upper house. Finally, in 
1769, after the appointment of Eden as governor, the lower 
house sent a long statement of their grievances to the lord 
proprietor, charged him with having prevented Governor 
Sharpe from doing what he thought would be for the best 
interest of the province, and expressed the hope that the 
authority delegated to the new governor might be " so 
unrestricted as to permit a free and full execution " of 
his abilities. 1 

About the same time, or a little earlier, must have come 
to the province the charge against the lord proprietor of 
the infamous crime, and nothing more seems to have been 
heard of his interference. The people had, in reality, 
made the governor supreme over all except themselves. 

The proprietary governors were : Leonard Calvert, 
1633 to 1647 ; Thomas Greene, 1647 to 1648 ; William 
Stone, 1648 to 1654 ; Josias Fendall, 1657 to 1660 ; Philip 
Calvert, 1660 to 1661 ; Charles Calvert, 1661 to 1684 (a 
board of four deputy governors administered the govern- 
ment from 1684 to 1689); John Hart 1715 to 1720; 
Charles Calvert, 1720 to 1727 ; Benedict Leonard Cal- 
vert, 1727 to 1731 ; Samuel Ogle, 1731 to 1732, 1733 to 
1742, 1747 to 1752; Thomas Bladen, 1742 to 1747; 
Horatio Sharpe, 1753 to 1769 ; and Robert Eden, 1769 to 
1776. 

With scarcely any loss, those governors who served 
previous to the Revolution of 1689 may be passed over 
without calling special attention to their personal traits 
or to the principal features of their respective adminis- 
trations. But with respect to those who served after the 
year 1715 such special attention will be more helpful. 

John Hart was appointed by the crown in the year 

1 L. H. J., December 20, 1709. 



164 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

1714, and upon the restoration of tlie proprietary govern- 
ment in the foHowing year, the hird proprietor continued 
him in his station. lie came to the province after it had 
been without a governor for five years, and while it was 
yet suffering from the effects of the war of the Spanish 
Succession. He is deserving of praise for the zeal with 
which he strove to bring about a better condition of affairs. 
For he was enthusiastic in recommending that provision 
should be made for education and for church discipline. 
He earnestly sought an im})rovement in the condition of 
the tol)acco trade. He recommended the raising of licmp 
on the eastern shore, and that provision should be made in 
each county for providing the province with more native 
seamen. He called attention to the need of better roads. 
He also made a proposition for building a governor's house. 
Hut the general ability of the man fell far short of liis zeal 
and his good intentions, and as a consequence very little 
was accomplished in the way of realizing his cherished 
ideals. On the other hand, his quarrel with the agent 
Carroll has already been noticed. He became involved in 
a noisy wrangle with the leading Catholics. He preferred 
the royal government to the proprietary government, and 
seems to have hoped that the restoration of the latter 
would end in a failure. Yet as chancellor he incurred 
the censure of the home government by taking the part 
of the peo])le against liii'chlield, his Majesty's surveyor 
general of tlie cust(tnis. .Vhhough he liad many warm 
admirers among the more zealous Protestants, yet, as a 
conse(|uence of all his trouble he was broken down in 
health before his recall in the year 1720. 

His successor, Charles Calvert, was a cousin of the lord 
[)ioprietor. The honesty and sincerity of this governor 
in [)rotecting the lord proprietor's interests are not ques- 
tioned. But he suffered fi-om bad health and had the 



THE EXECUTIVE 165 

reputation of being a poor manager of his own private 
affairs. It was during his administration that the bad 
condition of the tobacco industry began to create con- 
siderable commotion, and that the animosity of the lower 
house became greatly aroused over the question of English 
statutes, officers' fees, and the financial support of the 
council. While that animosity was directed mainly 
against the upper house, the governor's speeches to the 
Assembly — in which he was mild and moderate in merely 
coaxing the lower house to acknowledge the validity of 
the claims of the lord proprietor and the upper house — 
had but little effect. He was, in short, a weak governor. 
Benedict Leonard Calvert was a brother of the lord 
pro})rietor. But he proved to be a still weaker supporter 
of the ^proprietary interests. To the discontent of the 
last administration was added the bitter hostility of the 
clergy, arising out of controversies with respect to their 
support and discipline. The governor felt that the peo- 
ple were getting control of the government, while his 
confession of his own lack of ability, which appeared on 
several occasions, is best seen in the concluding words of 
one of his letters to the lord proprietor, " My weak- 
nesses," he says, " I doubt [not] are many, but sure I am 
they cannot outnumber my affections to your service." ^ 
While declaring open enmity to the most able leaders, 
Dulany and Bordley, he seems to have thrown himself on 
no other support than the pride of his ancestry. For to 
both houses of Assembly he once said : " As nothing can 
be more shocking to an ingenious mind than a distrust 
of professed sincerity, so I hope you will exert that peculiar 
cliaracteristic of Englishmen called Good Nature, and not 
be mistrustful of me because I am your Governor, as some 
persons void of all principle would without doors suggest. 
1 Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 80 et seq. 



166 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

But rather believe that (as I liave tlie lionor to descend 
from those who were the nursing fathers of this ct)h)ny 
when I may say it was yet at the breast) their aifections 
for this province with their blood descending is equally 
infused in me, and that I want nothing so much as to 
aliken myself yet more to them [and to have] such con- 
fidence [from] you as they from your ancestors enjoyed." ^ 
He promised to devote every faculty of his mind and body 
to the service of the province. But after the lower house 
had threatened to withhold a part of his financial support, 
he spoke of liinisclf as l)eing made a remarkable sat-rifice 
at a time when " slights and disregards to his Lordship 
and his family " had ap[)eared "■in the full gloom of dark 
envy and unreasonable malevolence." ^ After he had 
become broken down in health he died on his way to 
England. 

When Governor Ogle arrived, he must have found affairs 
in an extremely critical condition. Soon after his arrival 
he wrote that the country was as hot as possible about the 
English statutes and the judge's oath; that officers were 
held in such contempt that they did not receive one-half 
their fees ; that his predecessor had expressed a good deal 
of concern at the want of courage which the council had 
shown upon several occasions; and that the account given 
of the Assembly was enough to frighten a man out of his 
wits. He thought that it would pu///.le the best capacity 
in the world to do (uu'-half of what was needed for the 
lord proprietor's service. Yet he was sure that nobody in 
the world could set about that service with more zeal ami 
more true concern for the lord proprietor than he should 
do.3 

And it cannot be denied that Ogle did possess many of 

1 L. II. J., October 3, 1728. » u. II. J., August 1, 1729. 

' Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 81 et seq. 



THE EXECUTIVE 167 

the essential qualities of a successful governor. He felt 
the need of filling the more important offices with the most 
able men, and of properly rewarding them for their ser- 
vices. It was, accordingly, in line with his policy that 
Daniel Dulany was won over from the strongest leader of 
the opposition to the strongest supporter of the lord pro- 
prietor and his government ; and so long as there was 
reason to hope for harmony, Ogle's speeches to the Assem- 
bly were always pacific in spirit. But his zeal seems to 
have cooled, and he could not silence the opposition. 

The controversy over English statutes was soon settled, 
and by giving an office to each of four of the ablest mem- 
bers of the lower house their support was secured. But 
the act of assembly, by which the government had been 
supported for sixteen years, was suffered to expire, and 
the house expelled those four who had been appointed to 
office. Then the opposition found new leaders who be- 
came so loud and so exorbitant in their demands for par- 
liamentary privileges, and so unmanageable in their views 
with respect to the support of government, officers' fees, 
ordinary licenses, surplus lands, and alienation fines on 
lands devised, that the lord proprietor, in order to restore 
quiet, resorted to a proposition for the payment of his 
quit-rents and to a change of governors. But after Bladen 
had shown himself unqualified to govern. Ogle was reap- 
pointed. From that time he was popular. The act of 
assembly for the inspection of tobacco and the limitation 
of officers' fees, which was passed only a few months after 
his restoration to office, increased the general good feel- 
ing ; and just after his death in May, 1752, the editor of 
the Maryland Grazette pronounced the following eulogium 
upon him : " His great constancy and firmness in a pain- 
ful illness, and resignation to the divine Will, were suita- 
ble to a life exercised in every laudable pursuit. His long 



168 MAHVLANI) AS A PKOPUIETARY PROVINCE 

residence among us made him thoroughly acquainted witli 
our constitution and interests, and his benevolent dispo- 
sition induced him invariably to exert all the influence his 
station, as (jovernor, gave him, and every means which his 
good sense could suggest, to promote the public good. He 
was a pattern of sobriety and regularity ; a sincere lover 
of truth and justice ; and a most religious observer of his 
word. His example introduced and established a habit 
of sobriety and civility among us. That he was a man of 
fine parts and understanding, and that his administration 
was just, mild, and equitable, his enemies (if such a man 
could have any) dare not deny. In private life he was 
an amiable companion, in his conversation affable, cheerful, 
and instructive, but never assuming ; and in his friend- 
ship, warm and sincere." 

Thomas Bladen was a brother-in-law of the lord pro- 
prietor, and was the only governor who was born within 
the province. He had small capacity for governing. His 
request for .£2000 in currency to complete the governor's 
house after he had expended what had been appropriated for 
that purpose, and his taking advantage of an old law wdiich 
authorized him and the council to levy one pound of tobacco 
per poll, looked too much like encroaching on the people's 
taxing [)ower. The result was that he soon became unable 
to manage the opposition.^ 

Dnring Governor Sliarpe's administration was waged the 
last intercolonial war ; and because of lack of harmony 
between the lord proprietor and the people — especially 
because the lower house stubbornl}- insisted on taxing 
offices and the lord proprietor's estates, and on denying 
the proprietor's right to ordinary licenses — ^laryland 
failed to give much assistance in carrying on that war. 
Then, too, the war was followed by the passage of the 

1 L. II. J., June 2.') and July 1, 1746. 



THE EXECUTIVE 169 

Stamp Act. It was, therefore, a most trying time for the 
governor. It was his duty to be impartial toward the crown, 
the lord proprietor, and the people, and, also, at times, to 
protect the province from the common enemy. But Sharpe 
show^ed himself equal to tlie occasion. He was a member 
of an able English family. Through the assistance of one 
of his brothers, he received an important military appoint- 
ment soon after the war broke out, and w^as also chosen a 
surveyor general of his Majesty's customs. He kept the 
lord proprietor well informed as to his interests, and left 
him so little chance to complain that when Eden was 
appointed his successor, no other reason could be assigned 
for so doing than the desire to give a lucrative appoint- 
ment to a brother-in-law. 

Although the false patriots strove to throw Sharpe's 
conduct into an invidious light before the people,^ the 
predominating respect and esteem in which he was held 
by the people is best seen in addresses of the lower house, 
the clergy, and the count}' courts, just before his retirement. 
It was at that time that the lower house said to the lord 
proprietor, " Though a retrospection upon the proceedings 
of this house will not permit us to say that Mr. Sharpe 
always paid a due regard to the interest of the province, 
yet we must acknowledge it is our opinion that his own in- 
clination led him very much toward that desirable object." ^ 

In an address signed by thirty-five of the clergy is the 
following, " We beg leave to take this opportunity of 
gratefully acknowledging those amiable virtues, both in 
your public and private character, which have justly pro- 
cured you the esteem and affection of all ranks, and must 
forever endear the name of Governor Sharpe to the in- 
habitants of Maryland." 

1 Portfolio 4, No. 53, Stephen Bordley to Governor Sharpe. 

2 L. H. J., December 20, 17G9. 



170 MAKVLANI) AS A rUOI'niETAIlV PROVINCE ~ 

In the address from the justices of Kent County is the 
following: "During your Excellency's residence here 
tlie King's prerogative, liis Lordship's rights, and the 
liberty of the people have been equally your care. . . . 
The o[)en, })olite, and free benignity of disposition so 
natural to your Excellency has rendered all address to 
you easy. ... At several different periods when it re- 
quired much skill and judgment to direct the political 
iielm, affairs were so wisely and prudently conducted b}' 
your Excellency that the people of this province found 
themselves under fewer emi)arrassments than those of 
other places." 

The following came from the justices of Frederick 
County, "The unremittiug assiduity of your Excellency 
in discharging the duties of your station, and the constant 
attention you have manifested in promoting the welfare 
of the people, demand our warmest acknowledgments." 

Finally, the justices of St. Mary's County said, " Per- 
mit us to ex})ress the great concern we are under at the 
apprehension of being shortl}^ deprived of a Ruler who 
has proved himself a strict observer of every relative 
duty, and a steady friend to constitutional liberty."^ 

His successor, Robert Eden, was, however, no enemy to 
constitutional liberty, but, like Sharpe, was a popular 
governor. He was doubtless a man of less ability, resolu- 
tion, and diligence in state affairs ; but he was much less 
interfered with by the lord proprietor. He was courteous, 
easily accessible, fluent in speech, and possessed of a good 
amount of political tact. Moreover, in social circles, he 
was a favorite. When the great hostility arose over 
officers' fees, it was directed against the members of the 
upper house rather than against the governor ; and 
when the great struggle came with the mother country, 

^ Maryland Gazette and Giliuore Papers. 



THE EXECUTIVE 171 

it was with much regret that the people of Maryland saw 
Eden leave the province.^ 

With such men as Sharpe and Eden for governors at a 
time when tlie degenerate Frederick and his successor, ;i 
bastard son, were losing proprietary control, the transition 
from the old to the new system of government was made 
with less violence. 

In contrast with those colonies in which the governor's 
salary was dependent on annual appropriations, a good 
financial support for the governor of Maryland was 
secured in the year 1701 by a perpetual act of assembly. 
During the first thirty-nine years of the feudal period, 
however, the form in which the needs of the government 
were supplied was subject to frequent change. It is 
probable that during those years the governors received 
their support, to a considerable extent, from tlie sale of 
licenses to trade with the Indians. In the year 1612 the 
Assembly imposed an export duty of five per cent on 
tobacco for the support of government. Governor Greene 
was charged with promising to join with the people 
against the lord proprietor on the question of the validity 
of certain laws, if the Assembly would give him, for one 
year's support, twelve thousand pounds of tobacco, thirty 
barrels of corn, and a house to live in.^ In the year 1650 
the Assembly gave to Governor Stone one-half bushel of 
corn per poll. In the year 1658 Stone received from tlie 
lord proprietor a grant of a manor of five thousand acres, 
a part of which was a reward for " good and faithful 
service." Josias Fendall and Philip Calvert also received 
land as a reward for service. From 1662 to 1669 the 
Assembly gave Governor Charles Calvert twenty-five 

1 Steiner, " Life and Administration of Sir Kobert Eden." 
~ Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1GG4, 
p. 321. 



172 MARYLAND AS A PUOPItlETAKY PROVINCE 

])oun(ls of tobacco per \)n\\. IWit in lGt!9 he was given, 
instead, an export duty on tobacco of sixpence per poll. 

In 1(571 an act of assembly gave the lord proprietor, for 
life, a duty of two shillings per hogshead, one-half of which 
the lord proprietor was to have in consideration of his re- 
ceiving his quit-rents and alienation fines in tobacco at two- 
pence per pound, and the other half was intended by the 
Assembly to provide a support for the governor and coun- 
cil, and a necessary supply of arms and ammunition. An 
act of 1676 continued the same duty to the new lord pro- 
prietor. But after the royal government had been estab- 
lished, the Assembly, in 1092, gave the whole shilling of 
that two-shilling duty to the governor. In 1701, how- 
ever, the crown directed that one-fourth of the shilling 
should go toward providing the province with arms and 
ammunition.^ After 1704 the act imposing the duty for 
the support of government, and which at that time was 
passed for an unlimited period, was not repealed. Yet 
from 1717 to 1733 there was substituted in its place the 
act which imposed a duty of three shillings and three- 
pence per hogshead, two shillings of which were given 
as an equivalent for quit-rents and alienation fines, and 
fifteen pence for the support of the government. 'Die 
former duty of twelve pence was at this time increased to 
a fifteen-pence duty because of the increase which had 
recently been made in the size of the hogsheads, and all 
of it was given to the governor. Finall}-, from the expi- 
ration of the law of 1717, — which occurred in 1733, — 
until the overthrow of the j)roprietary government, the 
governor received for his salary the duty of twelve pence, 
which was collected by the law of 1704. But it was 
collected in the face of standing resolutions of the lower 
house that a law passed during the royal government was 

1 r. II. J., May 12, 1701. 



THE EXECUTIVE 173 

not in force after the restoration of the proprietary gov- 
ernment, and that if it were in force, one-fourth of that 
duty slioukl go toward purchasing arms and ammunition 
for the province. By 1756 the duty had come to amount 
to about X1400 currency per annum. ^ 

To Governor Hart the Assembly gave an additional 
duty of three pence per hogshead as a special encourage- 
ment. But in the interest of education, the lord projDrie- 
tor, in 1720. suggested that one-half of that duty be given 
for the support of schools. After being thus reduced, the 
Assembly gave it for a terra of only three 3'ears instead 
of during a governor's administration. In 1732 th*e term 
was reduced to one year, and after that it was seldom 
given. 

For several years before the Revolution of 1689, and 
again from the beginning of the eighteenth century, the 
lower house was occasionally urged to provide means for 
building a governor's house. It was not until the year 
1732, however, that the first appropriation was made for 
that purpose. Even then no action was taken until ten 
years later, when the former appropriation of <£3000 cur- 
rency was increased to £4000 currency. But even with 
this provision the governor's house was not completed 
during the proprietary period. For, after Governor Bladen 
had expended more than the =£4000, the house was not yet 
enclosed, and he estimated that another appropriation of 
=£2000 currency would be required to complete the build- 
ing. But as the lower house could not be prevailed upon 
to grant even enough to have it enclosed, it was left in 
a state of decay until after the overthrow of the proprie- 
tary government.^ 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 433. 

2 L. H. J., May 10 to June 1, 1744 ; Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, 
pp. 12, 56. 



174 MAllVLAND AS A PKorillETARY PIU)VINCE 

Nevertheless, although the attempt to build a governor's 
house failed, the Assembly made allowance to him for 
paying rent ; and that allowance was increased from £45 
currency in the 3'ear IT'iO to X8U currency in the year 
1756. But to exceed the latter amount, the lower house 
was less inclined than to refuse any allowance what- 
ever.i 

As chancellor, the governor must have received a con- 
siderable sum in fees. In 1754 Governor Sharpe received 
£226 currency for his service as his Majesty's surveyor 
general of the customs.^ The lord proprietor, Frederick, 
considered the governor's income sufficiently large to 
request him to pay annually £200 toward the salary of 
Secretary Calvert. ^ 

In all matters pertaining to the government, the chief 
support of the governor was the council of state. It 
ai)pears that the relation of governor and council was 
designed to he analogous to that between the English 
king and his privy council. As already stated, it was 
the usual custom for the lord proprietor to appoint mem- 
bers of the council upon the reconnnendation of the gov- 
ernor. The governor was expected to advise with the 
council upon all important occasions, and seldom, if ever, 
to act contrary to its advice. 

The members of the council were anthorized to meet 
with the governor at such time and place as he should 
direct, and then and there deliberate and give advice on 
all matters brought before them. They were bound by 
oath to defend and maiutain, at all times to the utmost 
of their power, the lord proprietor and his rights; to give 
good and faithful counsel to both lord pi'opriotor and 

' L. II. .J., August 1, 1721, and May 1, IToO ; Sliarpc's Corrcspoiulence, 
Vol. III. p. IW. 

2 l»ortfulio 3, No. 30. ^ Calvert Tapers, No. 2, p. 120. 



THE EXECUTIVE 



175 



governor ; never to accept any office pertaining to the 
government of the province that was derived from any 
other source than the lord proprietor ; to endeavor to pro- 
mote the peace and welfare of the people ; to assist in the 
administration of justice ; and, finally, to keep secret all 
the affairs of state. ^ 

The size of the council was gradually increased from 
three in the year 163(3 to nine in the year 1681 ; and 
after the establishment of the royal government, although 
tlie full council had twelve members, the usual number 
was nine or ten. 

A councillor was seldom removed or even suspended, 
and vacancies were, therefore, seldom caused except by 
death or by resignation. Occasionally, a member served 
over twenty years. But the membership was usually very 
largely changed in the course of every ten years. 

During the feudal period the amount of business trans- 
acted in the council was large. There was seldom a 
space as long as two months in which that board did not 
meet, and, when met, it often continued in session sevei'al 
days. The variety of its transactions was also large. 
Thus, in those days, at the council board, offices and 
courts were created, officers were commissioned and in- 
structed, the oaths of officers were administered and fees 
were fixed and regulated, taxes were levied, petitions were 
heard, pardons were granted, advice was given with re- 
spect to calling, proroguing, and dissolving the Assembly, 
ordinances were issued with respect to the proprietor's 
territorial rights, the election of delegates, and expedi- 
tions against the Indians, and ordinances were likewise 
issued for the erection of local divisions, — such as hun- 
dreds and counties, — for the naturalization of foreigners, 
and forbidding the exportation of grain. 

1 rroceedings of the Council, 16;}6 to 1667, pp. 211-214. 



176 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

But after the Revolution of 1689 scarcely an office was 
created, for the most of the time fees were fixed and 
regulated by act of assembly, taxes were levied only by 
a committee of the two houses of Assembly, the manner 
of electing and summoning delegates was wholly deter- 
mined by act of assembly, counties were erected only by 
act of assembly, hundreds were erected only by orders of 
a county court, foreigners were naturalized only by acts 
of asseml)ly, and before the middle of the eighteenth 
century the lower house successfully opposed the forbid- 
ding of the exportation of grain by an ordinance of the 
governor and council. 

The business of tlie council was, therefore, far less in 
the eighteenth century than it was in the seventeenth. 
During an entire year in the eighteentli it sat for but few 
more days than it did in a single month in the seventeenth 
century. In the eighteenth century its business was 
largely confined to giving advice with respect to calling, 
prorogning, and dissolving the Assembly, to Indian ques- 
tions, to the boundary dispute with the Penns, to the 
hearing of a few petitions, to the issuing of death war- 
rants, and to the granting of pardons. The marked 
decrease in the business of the council and the corre- 
sponding increase in that of the General Assembly is a 
striking reflection of tlie change from monarchical toward 
popular government. 

Just as the lord proprietor w^as the fountain head of 
all authority, and just as the governor was the representa- 
tive of the lord proprietor, so, again, in the council, office 
and power were higlily centralized. When in the year 
1640 or the year 1650 the General Assembly became 
divided into an upper and a lower house, the governor 
and council — and after the year 1675 the council alone 
— constituted the upper liouse. The governor and mem- 



THE EXECUTIVE 177 

bers of the council were the justices of the provincial 
court until near the time of the establishment of the royal 
government.^ The governor then ceased to be a justice 
of that court, but a varying number of the council were 
continued in that capacity. Moreover, when, at the be- 
ginning of the royal government, the court of appeals was 
instituted, the governor and the members of the council 
were its justices. The members of the council were 
always justices of the peace. During the early, or feudal 
period, the secretary, the surveyor general, the members of 
the land council, — of whom the receiver general was one, 
— and some military officers were members of the council. ' 
Almost always, after the restoration of the proprietary 
government in 1715, the secretary, the commissary gen- 
eral, the attorney general, the agent, the judge or judges 
of the land office, one or both of the treasurers, the com- 
missioners of the currency office, and the five naval offi- 
cers were members of the council.'^ If the councillor had 
more offices than he could attend to, he appointed deputies. 
After the year 1676 the secretary always appointed the 
county clerks ; and after the year 1717 the judge or judges 
of tlie land office appointed the register of that office. 

During the feudal period the members of the council 
were usually large landholders. Thus, Thomas Corn- 
wallis, the stalwart military commander, had, at one time, 
not much less than twenty thousand acres. Thomas 
Gerrard, William Stone, Philip Calvert, Baker Brooke, 
Henry Sewall, Giles Brent, John Lewger, James Neale, 
William Eltonhead, and Nathaniel Utie were all lords of 
manors, and each of the first five of them had five thousand 
acres or more. 

Moreover, from the year 1670 until the Revolution of 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1(;81 to 1085-86, pp. 431, 432. 

2 Portfolio 3, No. 30. 

K 



178 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

1689, many of the council were Ijound to tlie lord pro- 
prietor by the ties of kinship. For example, of the nine 
members in the year 1G81, six were related to the lord 
proprietor as follows : Philip Calvert, uncle ; Vincent 
Lowe, father-in-law ; William Calvert and Henry Darnall, 
cousins ; William Dif^gs and Benjamin Roger, step-sons. 

From the year 171 "> until after the year 1755 the mem- 
bers of the council had tlie reputation of being men of poor 
ability, and the records show that the transactions of that 
board during those years were exceedingly few. Strength 
was no longer derived, to any considerable extent, from 
the ties of kinship ; and wliile able lawyers had by this 
time become leaders in the lower house, the lord proprie- 
tor continued to choose the members of the council from 
the county gentry rather than from among men of the 
best ability. 1 Then, too, the pay for service during that 
interval was so small as to be a poor encouragement. 

In the year 1725 the members of the council were Will- 
iam Holland, Samuel Young, John Ilall, Thomas Addison, 
Philemon Lloyd, Uicliard Tilghman, Mattliew Tilghman 
Ward, James Bowles, and Benjamin Tasker. Three of 
them — Lloyd, Tilglmian, and Ward — were near rela- 
tives ; and at least seven of the nine were among the very 
largest laii<lliol(U'rs. These gentlemen seemed to feel 
mucii hurt when the lower house cast " invidious reflec- 
tions " on them as enemies of the liberties of the people. 
When they, as members of tlie upper house, had made 
their weakness to appear in the controversies over officers' 
fees, English statutes, and pay for their own services, they 
allowed a bill to pass for the reduction of officers' fees 
about oiu'-lialf. Then they asked the lord proprietor to 
reject that l)ill, advised liim to make some concessions 
with respect to English statutes, and, in the same com- 

J Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 86. 



THE EXECUTIVE 179 

munication, expressed no little anxiety about their own 
pay.i 

In the year 1729 Governor Calvert, with respect to 
recommending for appointments to the council, wrote : 
" Such men as ought to be chosen are not easily got, and 
few men care for an empty honor attended with trouble, 
without some recompense. There are not places in the 
government sufficient for all, and the country refuse still 
to pay them for attendauce when necessary." ^ Two years 
later the same governor is said to have expressed much 
concern at the want of courage the council had shown on 
several occasions.^ 

Governor Ogle took pains to have the most able men in 
the lower house appointed to the most lucrative offices, 
and, after that, relied on his own skill to manage the 
Assembly. The consequence was that during his admin- 
istration only one or two men at all conspicuous for their 
ability were sworn into the council. 

In the year 1755 Governor Sharpe wrote to Secretary 
Calvert the following: "If you knew how unaccustomed 
or how averse the present members (except perhaps Mr. 
Thomas) were to writing or communicating their thoughts 
to the lower house by message on any occasion, you would, 
I am persuaded, think with me that it is highly requisite 
the vacancies in his Lordship's council should be supplied 
with gentlemen of abilities who have been used to argue 
or write, and would be capable of supporting his Lord- 
ship's rights and prerogatives whenever a levelling house 
of burgesses should be inclined to attack them. You 
know. Sir, that few people will choose to engage in a 
dispute with those whose superior capacity they are sen- 
sible of."* 

1 U. II. J., November 5, 1725. 2 Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 80. 

^ Ibid., p. 81 et seq. * Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 180 et seq. 



180 MAIIYLAND AS A PROPRIETAltV PIIOVINCE 

After tliis and a few similar representations, Sliarpe 
succeeded in introducing into tlie council men of much 
greater talent, such, for example, as the Dulanys, the 
Bordleys, the Goldsboroughs, (ieorge Plater, and Daniel 
of St. Thomas Jenifer. The greatest of these was Daniel 
Dulany. His father had led the popular branch of the 
legislature to victory in its contest with the lord proprie- 
tor regarding the people's right to the English statutes. 
He had done much to encourage the settlement of Fred- 
erick County, and he was the most highly esteemed lawyer 
in the province.^ The son, Daniel, was destined to out- 
shine his father's talents. He was thoroughly educated 
in the mother country. He, like his fatjier, chose the 
profession of the law. He became a member of the coun- 
cil in the year 1757. After the Stamp Act had been 
published, he produced the strongest arguments against it 
of any man on the American continent. This made him 
exceedingly popular, and even the lord proprietor saw fit 
to reward him still further for his services. He was 
advanced from the office of commissary general to the 
office of secretary. His brother AN'alter was sworn into 
the council, and api)()inted to the office of commissary 
general. His cousin, Benjamin Ogle, and his brother-in- 
law, William Fitzhugh, were also appointed members of 
the council. The office of secretary and the office of com- 
missary general were the two most lucrative offices under 
that of the governor. The income from them in fees had 
been greatly increased by the inspection act of 1747, and 
by the large growth in population. The Dulanys were 
related to the most Avealthy families in the province, such 
as the Bennetts, the Dorseys, the Lloyds, the Tilghmans 
and the Chews. Before the close of the proprietary period 
Daniel Dulany had no less than seventeen thousand acres 

1 Duhuiy l'ai)ers. 



THE EXECUTIVE 181 

of land in Frederick County alone. Some other members 
of the council were very wealthy. Daniel of St. Thomas 
Jenifer, for example, who was the lord proprietor's agent 
and receiver general, left by his will, in the year 1790, 
more than X5000 currenc}'' besides a large amount of land, 
several slaves, and valuable plate. Still another member, 
Benedict Calvert, a cousin of the lord proprietor, held a 
no less lucrative post than that of a judge of the land 
office. Furthermore, the greatest of these officers were 
constituted a board of revenue, and given general super- 
vision of the proprietor's territorial affairs. 

Ability of the highest order had at last found its way 
into the council. But at the same time, as will be seen 
later, the showing of so much favor to one family, and the 
increased centralization of office, wealth, and power did 
not fail to arouse suspicion and discontent to such an 
extent as to test the strength of that ability beyond 
endurance. 

How the council was supported previous to the year 
1671 does not appear. But from that year until the estab- 
lishment of the royal government, provision was made for 
its support by the act which imposed the export duty on 
tobacco of two shillings per hogshead. When its income 
from that source was terminated, provision was made for 
its support in two separate acts of 1692, — one, which 
appropriated the fourteen pence tonnage duty to the sup- 
port of government, and another, which imposed a duty of 
fourpence per gallon on imported liquors. But the crown 
disallowed the tonnage act ; and from 1694 until 1723 
there was allowed in the public levy the itinerant charges 
and 150 pounds of tobacco for each day's service in coun- 
cil to every member of that board. However, as early as 
1717, when the act for the support of government and for 
giving the equivalent for quit-rents and alienation fines 



182 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETAKV I'ROVINX'E 

was first passed, the feeling arose that, as in 1G71, so now, 
the council should be supported out of the duty appropri- 
ated for the maintenance of the government.^ The con- 
troversy over English statutes sulliciently strengthened 
that feeling to cause the allowance to the council to be 
withheld from 1723 until 1736. 

Hut before 1730 a large measure of quiet in the relations 
between the two houses had been restored, and the gov- 
ernment doubtless felt that it was a little stronger. In 
that year, therefore, the upper house declared that it 
would agree to no public allowance whatever, unless its 
own allowance as a council was included therein. ^ The 
lower liouse yielded so far as to agree to the allowance for 
that year, and for eleven years thereafter that allow- 
ance was made. Ikit from 1747 to 1756 no public claims 
were paid because the upper house would not agree to any 
public allowances unless the lower house would jxiss the 
appropriation demanded for the council. This time it 
was the upper house that finally yielded ; and it is quite 
clear that the Assembly made no allou^ance to the council 
after the year 1717. 

Nevertheless, in 1754, the average income of each mem- 
ber of tlie council from his several ollices was about £372 
currency.^ According to reports of committees in the 
lower house, the fees of ollice in 1774 were at least fifty 
per cent greater in value than they Avere in 1754. The 
lord proprietor, Frederick, seems to have thought the in- 
come to some of the members of the council large enough 
to ask four of them to contribute, at first, X250, and later 
X400 each year toward the salary of Secretarj' Calvert.* 

1 L. II. J., July 24 and 28, 1710, and May 31, 1717. 

2U. II. J., May 4, 1730. 

8 rortfolio 3, No. 30. 

* Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 120 ; Calvert Papers, No. 648. 



THE EXECUTIVE 183 

It is, therefore, not so strange that the unsuccessful at- 
tempt, from 1770 to 1773, to reduce those fees, caused a 
tumultuous uprising among the people. 

It is true that, from his point of view, the lord proprie- 
tor was authorized by his charter to create as many offices 
as he saw fit, to appoint any person to as many of those 
offices as he pleased, and, in each office, to allow whatever 
fees he chose as a reward for service. The old feudal idea 
of privilege to the official class also supported that view. 
On tlie other hand, the people as English subjects, who were 
proud of the control they had acquired over the official sys- 
tem, and especially over taxation for the support of govern- 
ment, considered themselves entitled by the same charter 
to share in every victory won by the House of Commons. 
When, therefore, the position of the House of Commons at 
the time when the charter was granted is contrasted with 
the position of that same body after the English Revolution 
of 1688, it will readily appear how natural it was for the 
lower house of the Maryland legislative Assembly to begin 
to resist the creation of new offices, to contend for some 
control over appointment, and to hold that, as fees were of 
the nature of taxes, it was entitled to a large measure of 
control in fixing the amount of those fees. Contention 
and resistance along this last line were strengthened and 
invigorated as the accumulation of offices in one person 
resulted in encouraging the sale of such offices as could 
not be administered by the first appointee. That conten- 
tion and resistance was strengthened and invigorated as 
the purchasers of such offices, in order to make their pur- 
chases profitable, were induced to transgress the law in 
making all possible charges for fees. Lastly, that conten- 
tion was strengthened and invigorated, and violence grew 
more threatening as, with the rapid increase in population, 
fees of office increased until the large office-holders — 



184 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROYINCE 

members of tlie council — were enabled, through the in- 
come from their estates, as well as from tlieir offices, to 
live in wealth, luxury, and social splendor in the fashion- 
able city of Annapolis ; while, at the same time, not only 
to the non-resident, pleasure-seeking lord proprietor was 
sent out of the province each 3'ear over i;l2,000 as terri- 
torial revenue, but also for his secretary's salary was sent 
out yearly £600 from the earnings of the five largest 
office-holders. 

The creation of offices by the sole authority of the lord 
proprietor or his governor and council was very largely 
confined to the feudal period, and hence, also, to the time 
preceding the English Revolution of 1G88. When the gov- 
ernment was first organized it appears that there were 
appointed only the governor, two or three persons styled 
commissioners to advise and assist him, and a surveyor. 
In 1636, when a reorganization of the government was 
undertaken, one and the same commission continued 
Leonard Calvert as governor, appointed Jerome Hawley, 
Thomas Cornwallis, and John Lewger to constitute the 
council, and appointed John Lewger secretary, register 
of the land otlice, and receiver general. It further appears 
that by a separate commission Jerome Hawley was ap- 
pointed treasurer. In 1642 the governor, the council, 
and Lewger each received a separate commission. At 
the time of the reorganization of the government, in 
1636, the governor and council began the erection of 
such local institutions as hundreds and counties. Over 
the hundred, as well as over the county, the same author- 
ity appointed a military commander ; over the hundred, 
a constable ; and over the county, a sheriff and an increas- 
ing number of justices of the peace. Those justices of the 
peace with a clerk soon came to constitute the county court. 
In 1648 the first muster master general was appointed. 



THE EXECUTIVE 185 

In 1638 John Lewger, who was already a member of the 
council, secretary, register of the land office, and receiver 
general, was made judge of probate by an act of assembly. 
It also appears that the same officer discharged the duties 
of surveyor general and attorney general. But in 1641 
the office of surveyor general was separated from the 
secretary's office by the lord proprietor's appointment 
of a surveyor general ; and in 1685 the office of exam- 
iner general was separated from that of the surveyor 
general. In 1650 or 1660 the office of attorney gen- 
eral was separated from the secretary's office by the 
appointment of an attorney general. In 1673 the 
office of judge of probate was separated from that of 
the secretary and united for a time with that of the 
chancellor. In 1676 the office of receiver general was 
separated from that of the secretary by the appoint- 
ment of two receivers general. Finally, in 1680, the 
office of register of the land office was made distinct 
from that of the secretary. 

Upon the establishment of the royal government, the 
office of commissary general, or judge of probate, was 
separated from that of the chancellor ; and the office 
of naval officer — or collector of the customs duties which 
were levied by acts of assembly — and the office of treas- 
urer were separated from each other and from that of the 
receiver general. Before the close of the seventeenth 
century two treasurers — one for each shore — had been 
appointed. By the middle of the eighteenth century the 
naval officers were five, — one for the lower Potomac, one 
for the upper Potomac, one for the Patuxent, one for 
Annapolis, and one for Oxford on the eastern shore. 

From 1661 to the Revolution of 1689 the office of chan- 
cellor was separate from tliat of the governor. Such was 
also the case for a short time under the royal government 



186 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

and, again, at the close of Governor Hart's administration. 
But at other times those two oflices were held by the same 
person. 

As early as 1G69 it was a grievance of the lower house 
that offices were erected without any act of assembly for 
so doing. ^ One of the charges which the revolutionists 
of 1689 brought against the government was the creation, 
without act of assembly, of such new offices as those 
of the examiner general, attorney general, and clerk of 
the council. 2 With but one exception after the restora- 
tion of the proprietary government in 1715 no entirely 
new office was created without an act of assembly for 
that purpose. That exception was the creation of the 
office of examiner in chancery in the year 17-U, and five 
years after its creation the lower house unanimously con- 
curred in the report of its committee on grievances that 
the creation of that office without any law to support tlie 
same was an encroachment on the rights of British sub- 
jects.'' For several years the creation of tliat office was 
numbered among the grievances, and the lord proprietor 
finally decided that it might be given up, if necessary, to 
restore quiet.* Although it was retained, the charter right 
according to which it had been erected was thereafter lost. 

The attempt to interfere with the charter right of the 
lord proi)rictor to a|)})oint to oflice was quite closely con- 
fined to the olfices of sheriff and treasurer. Besides being 
a servant of the courts, the sheriff was tlie collector of the 
offiiccrs' fees, dues of the clerg}-, and whatever other taxes 
were from time to time levied directly on the people by 
act of assembly. He also liad niucli to do at the election 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, IGCG to 1G70, pp. 109, 
176. 

2 Procofdinirs of (lie Council, 1087-88 to WX\. p. 210. 

3 L. II. J., July 2.3, 1740. •• Calvert I'iipei-s, No. 415. 



THE EXECUTIVE 187 

of members to the lower house ; and at one time the farm- 
ers of the proprietor's quit-rents were mostly sheriffs. 
The treasurers — one for each shore — were the officers to 
whom the sheriffs paid what was collected from the public 
levies and who accounted for the same to the Assembly. 

As early as 1642 an act of assembly directed that the 
governor should appoint sheriffs from lists of persons 
nominated for that office by the provincial court and by 
each county court. An act of 1662 not only provided 
for similar nominations, but forbade any person to serve 
as sheriff longer than one year. 

In 1669 the Assembly did not so interfere, for the upper 
house declared tliat the right to appoint sheriffs belonged 
solely to the lord proprietor, and that the Assembly ought 
not to meddle with it.^ 

But by 1678 the complaints against slieriffs liad become 
so bitter that an act of assembly was passed that year to 
forbid any person from serving as sheriff longer than one 
year, unless at the end of that year lie procured from one 
of the county courts a statement certifying to the just 
execution of his office. After that time a similar act was 
usually in force. Yet under the royal government there 
arose the complaint that, although an act of assembly 
forbade any one to serve as sheriff longer than three years, 
by " clandestine, secret, underhand practices the same 
person continued as sheriff in all respects but title for 
many years together." ^ 

In 1724 the committee on grievance^, after speaking of 
the general complaint of the people against the sheriffs, 
expressed the opinion that the sheriffs — by having the 
collection of all public dues and officers' fees as well as 
other duties rightly annexed to their office — had a much 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1606 to 1676, p. 197. 
2U. H. J., July 1, 1714. 



188 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY I'ROVIXCE 

greater influence on the people than slieiiffs or any other 
officers in Enghuid. That committee, therefore, propo.sed, 
as the most phiusible means wherewith to remedy the evil 
and bring about a " just and tender " execution of the 
office, that sheriffs should be elected by the people. 
"And as the grant of that office," continued the com- 
mittee, " is no advantage but a trouble to the person grant- 
ing it, we hope it may be thought the rather conducive 
to the common satisfaction of prerogative and people."^ 
But the upper house was wise enough to be of the opinion 
that the election of the sheriffs .by the people would 
" prove a foundation for confusion and party animosities 
succeeded by oppression to those who appeared not to be 
of the prevailing candidate's party." Therefore, that 
house was in no way disposed to surrender such a branch 
of the lord proprietor's prerogative. 

Such was the last attempt of the lower house to inter- 
fere in the appointment of sheriffs. Tliereafter, in order 
to make that officer feel his responsibility to the people, 
the lower house freely resorted to the practice of calling 
before its bar any sheriff cliarged witli neglect or o2)pres- 
sion in the execution of his office; and if found guilty, as 
he usually was, that house imposed upon him whatever 
penalty it pleased. 

In the year 1G1>5 the lower house seems to have ap- 
pointed the two public treasurers without any concur- 
rence therein by the governor or the council. In the year 
1713, when that matter was in dispute, the lower house 
contended that it alone had tlie right to appoint, to re- 
move, and to direct in office those treasurers, and that the 
upper house could only concur or refuse to concur in 
their appoint ment.^ The upper house conceded all this 
at that time, and tlitic the question stood until the year 

1 L. H. J., October 28, 1724. ^ //„vf^ November 2, 1713. 



THE EXECUTIVE 189 

1736. But in that year, upon a vacancy occurring, the 
governor and the council held that the charter gave the 
right of appointing those officers to the lord proprietor, 
that tlie right had not been given away by any act of 
assembly, and, therefore, that the governor ought to make 
the appointment to fill the vacancy.^ He accordingly did 
so. The lower house thereupon appointed a committee to 
ascertain what had been the previous practice.^ But the 
treasurers had much less important duties to perform 
with respect to the public money than had the sheriffs, and 
the matter was consequently regarded as of such minor 
importance that the house paid little attention to the 
report of its committee. 

In the year 1G92, the council itself being involved in a 
quarrel with the secretary. Sir Thomas Lawrence, ques- 
tioned his right to remove county clerks without sufficient 
cause. ^ But the secretary was sustained by the home 
government. In 1711, however, the lower house re- 
solved that it was illegal for the secretary to remove any 
county clerk who was legally and duly qualified for that 
office.* Twenty years later. Governor Ogle, at the begin- 
ning of his administration, wrote as follows to the lord 
proprietor, " I am informed the right your secretary has 
of naming the clerks of counties at his pleasure has not 
only been disputed but carried against him, and for some 
time acquiesced in to the great lessening of your Lord- 
ship's power." ^ That right of the secretary was, how- 
ever, recovered a little later and retained to the end of the 
proprietary government ; but not without loud complaint 

1 C. R., October 23, 1736. 

2 L. H. J., May 23, 1737 ; see also L. H. J., June 3, 1748. 

3 Proceedings of the Council, 1687-88 to 1693, pp. 398, 399. 
*L. H. J., November 2, 1711. 

5 Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 83. 



190 MAKYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

against the sale of those clerksliips and against the secre- 
tary's receiving one-tenth of each clerk's income.^ 

It, therefore, appears that the encroachments made 
during the royal period upon the lord proprietor's right of 
appointment to office were discontinued and their effects 
removed some time after the proprietary government was 
restored. Yet a permanent act of assembly, passed in 
1704, forbade any person to be appointed to office who 
luid not resided in the province at least three years. 
Later, when bills were before the assembly for raising 
supplies to carr}' on war, the lower house insisted on 
enjoying the right to name tlie assessors as well as the 
connnissioners who were to apply whatever was to be 
appropriated. 

The outcome of the whole matter was, however, that 
the lord proprietor retained such a large control over 
appointment to the old offices that the legal remedy 
against the evils of centralization and sale in the official 
system was weak. In 1G06, when the lower house was 
quite strong, legislation was had for preventing the clerk- 
ship of a county court from being held by a sheriff, 
and for making the office of coroner distinct from tliat of 
the sheriff. Early in the period of royal govennnent an 
ineffectual movement was made to decentralize the official 
system. In 1709, and again in 1714, the committee on 
grievances made its complaint against the evils of one 
person holding many offices. ^ In 1740 the lower house 
held tliat, since the members of the council participated in 
legislation, they should be incapable of holding any office.^ 
But these complaints and opinions availed little. 

The natural consequence of the centralization of the 
oflicial system was the sale of offices. During the royal 

iL. II. .J., May 14, 1750. 

2 U. II. J., November 2, 1709, and July 1, 1714. ^ ji,\i, May 17, 1740. 



THE EXECUTIVE 191 

period complaint was raised against the sale of the sheriff's 
office.^ Grievous complaints were raised against the sale 
of the clerkships before 1711, and from 1739 to the close 
of the proprietary period. Then, from 1751, the office of 
governor was saddled with <£200 per annum ; the office 
of secretary at first with .£50, but later with £200 ; the 
office of commissary general Avith £100; and those of the 
two judges of the land office with £50 each. From 1720 
to 1774 bills to prevent the sale of offices on several occa- 
sions passed the lower house. In 1769 that house, in a 
list of grievances which it sent to the lord proprietor, 
declared, " The sale of offices, now open and avowed, 
obliges the purchaser, by every way and means in his 
power, to enhance his fees ; this is contrary to law and 
leads directly to oppression.'' ^ 

But although the lord proprietor retained the right of 
appointment, and although the sale of offices was not pro- 
hibited, yet the consciousness that offices were bought and 
sold as an article of merchandise could not have failed to 
strengthen the efforts of the lower house to control the 
amount of fees. As early as the year 1639 some fees were 
regulated by act of assembly. Previous to the Revolution 
of 1689, however, fees were for the most part fixed and 
regulated by the lord proprietor, or by the governor and 
council. They were fixed and regulated by the same 
authority from the year 1733 to the year 1747, and after 
the year 1770. But at other times — except from Decem- 
ber, 1725, until 1733, when they were subject to no regula- 
tion — they were fixed and regulated by act of assembly. 

In 1704 and in 1714 the lower house made unsuccessful 
attempts to reduce the amount of fees. In 1719 that 
house succeeded in having them reduced about one-fourth. 
In 1724 and 1725 an unsuccessful attempt was made to 

1 L. H. J., November 2, 1709. 2 ji^ia,, December 20, 17G9. 



192 .MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

reduce them oiie-luilf. In 1747, when tlie inspection act 
was passed, the nominal reduction of them was one-fifth. 
Finally, in 1770, the unsuccessful attempt of the lower 
house to make another reduction caused the governor 
to issue a proclamation for their regulation as fixed 
in the act of assembly, which had just been suffered to 
expire ; and that proclamation was the occasion of tumult- 
uous uprising in several of the counties. For example, 
the Gazette gave the following account of the treatment 
the proclamation received in Frederick County at the 
close of an election of delegates to the lower house : "The 
proclamation was read and unanimously declared to be 
illegal, unconstitutional, and oppressive ; and sentenced 
to be carried to the gallows, and hanged thereon, and 
afterwards to be buried face downwards, that by every 
ineffectual struggle it might descend still deeper in ob- 
scurity. 

" The proclamation was then put in a coffin provided for 
tlie purpose, and carried to the place of execution, at- 
tended by a concourse of at least one thousand people, 
wlio moYed in slow and regular order, attended Avith 
drums, fifes, and bagpipes, playing slow music suitable 
to the occasion. The sentence was executed to the uni- 
versal satisfaction and joy of the spectators, uuiler a 
general discharge of small arms."^ 

That time of general uprising also provoked such severe 
criticism upon the whole official system as tlie following : 
" When the members of the upper house hold their seats 
for life, and not for pleasure, and hold no lucrative offices 
under the government ; when the same gentlemen are 
not members of the upper house, counsellors, and judges 
in the provincial court and court of a})peals ; wlien the 
judges of our su|ii(mu(^ court hold their commissions dur- 

1 Maryland GazrtU, May L'7. 1773. 



THE EXECUTIVE 193 

ing good behavior, and are declared incapable of holding 
any place from government but their judicial stations, the 
income of which to be liberal ; when the office of chancel- 
lor is separated from the office of governor ; when a 
law can be obtained to prevent the sale of offices ; when 
the interests of the governors and the governed are in- 
separable ; when the good of the people is the object of 
government ; when the law of the land is the rule of con- 
duct, and not illegal proclamations — then will government 
be respected and supported ; then will the governor be 
considered to be the friend of the people over whom he 
presides ; then will the gentlemen of the council be thought 
to act and advise according to their opinion with honor 
and integrity ; then will the upper house be deemed inde- 
pendent of government, and not perverted by the influence 
of interest and bias of office ; then will it no longer be 
deemed infamous to hold an office of profit under govern- 
ment."! 

1 Maryland Gazette, October 28, 1773. 



CHAPTER II 

THE LEGISLATURE 

The Assembly of the Palatiiuite of Durham was com- 
posed of the ordinary freeholders and the bishop's council. 
The members of that council were the members of the 
bishop's household, the officers of the Palatinate, and 
certain other persons. The council and tlie other free- 
holders were accustomed to sit as one body in the capac- 
ity of a court of law as well as a legislative Assembly. 

As a legislative Assendjl}^ its greatest activity was 
directed to the subject of taxation. No impost projiosed 
by the Ijishop (-ould be collected without the assent of the 
Assembly, which also enjoyed the right of self-taxation 
on its own initiative for its own ends. l)Ut further than 
this the legislative functions did not extend ; and those 
very limited functions were kept all the more rudimen- 
tary because the bishop was ordinarily able to '' live of 
his own." They were kept confined to taxation because 
acts of parliament regularly extended to the Palatinate ; 
and because in case of the need of any special or locid 
regulation, action was taken l)y the council and not by 
the Assembly.' 

Distance from the seat of the home government and an 
environment so unlike that in Durlunn, or in any other 
part of tlu^ mother country, favored a far diffci-ent devel- 
opment within the })rovince of Maryland. In the charter 
was expressed the wish of the crown tliat the lord pro- 

1 Lapsley, "County Palatine of Durham." 
194 



THE LEGISLATURE 195 

prietor would assemljle the freemen or their delegates for 
the framing of laws as often as need should require. 
But it was clearly implied that ordinarily the lord pro- 
prietor might be the judge with respect to the existence 
of such a need ; and the right to determine the form or 
manner of calling an Assembly was expressly granted to 
the lord proprietor. 

The first Assembly was convened eleven months after 
tlie landing of the first colonists. But little is known of 
that Assembly except that some acts passed by it failed to 
receive the loi-d proprietor's assent. Nearly two years 
later, when tlie second Assembly was called, the governor 
issued personal writs of summons to the members of the 
council and a few others. Some of those thus summoned 
in person, such as commanders of hundreds, were directed 
to encourage the attendance of such persons as they saw 
fit, and to give all other freemen of the hundred the privi- 
lege to attend in person or to choose delegates. ^ The result 
of issuing such writs was not that delegates were publicly 
elected, bnt that many made private choice of a proxy. 
So that when the most important question of the ses- 
sion was. put to a vote, nineteen persons cast sixty-nine 
votes. 2 The consequence was that a complaint arose that 
the governor and the secretary, being proxies for so 
many, controlled the Assembly.^ 

Less than one year later, December, 1638, writs of 
election were issued, preparatory to calling the third 
Assembly, to each of the hundreds and to one manor. 
The writ sent to the hundreds directed that two or more 
delegates should be chosen, but the writ to the manor did 
not state the number. Personal Avrits of summons were 
also issued to each member of the council and to three 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-88 to 1GG4, p. 1. 

2 Ibid., p. n. 3 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. IGO. 



196 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

other gentlemen.^ When this tliird Assembly liad met 
there were present the governor, five persons who liad 
received a personal summons, two delegates from each of 
four hundreds, and one delegate from a manor. 

Each of the two acts passed by that Assembly supported 
the manner in which it had been elected and called. But 
from 1641 to 1650 the disquietude in the province, result- 
ing from the civil commotion in the mother country, 
caused the governor again to assemble the freemen 
in person, by delegates or by proxies ; and that the 
directing how the Assembly should be constituted was 
still claimed by the lord pro})rietor as his sole right, 
appeared after a protest had been made in the year 1617 
against the right of the governor to continue as a legal 
Assembly one which had been regarded as a rebel As- 
sembly .^ But in the year 1650, after the governor had 
given the freemen the opportunity to assemble in person, 
b}'^ proxy, or to elect delegates, each of the hundreds 
elected from one to three delegates. Ever after that the 
representative method of election was followed. 

The establishment even by custom of a system of repre- 
sentation — which in no form whatever seems to have 
been known in the Palatinate of Durham — was an im- 
portant step toward organizing the legislative power of 
the people. But so long as the governor continued his 
earl}' practice of sunnnoning by personal writs an indefi- 
nite number of gentlemen to sit with the people's repre- 
sentatives, it might have been easy for him to control 
legislation. In 1642, however, the delegates took their 
first step to remove any advantage the governor might 
secure from such a privilege by requesting that the As- 
sembly be divided into two houses, of which the people's 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1037-38 to 1664, pp. 
27, 28. 2 ji,id., p. 266. 



THE LEGISLATURE 197 

representatives should constitute one, and have the right 
to give its negative to any legislative measure.^ Though 
Governor Calvert refused to grant the request, Governor 
Stone seems to have yielded the point in 1649. At any 
rate, in 1650, the two houses were established by act of 
assembly ; and ever after that the bicameral system was 
continued, except during the short period of government 
by the Puritan commissioners. This was another advance 
in organization beyond that of the Assembly in the Palati- 
nate of Durham. Henceforth the upper house was to 
stand for the rights and interests of the lord proprietor, 
while the lower house stood for the rights and interests 
of the people. No law could be made or repealed without 
the consent of both houses, of the governor and the lord 
proprietor. The contest between the elements of monar- 
chical government on the one side, and those of popular 
government on the other, was thereafter, in a large meas- 
ure, fought out by the two houses, although both the 
governor and the lord proprietor occasionally became 
more or less fiercely engaged therein. 

Of the upper house little need be said in this connec- 
tion, since the last chapter was so largely devoted to it as 
an executive body. Although in the year 1675 the lord 
proprietor authorized the governor to summon to the 
upper house, besides the members of the council, a num- 
ber of lords of manors not exceeding seven,^ and although 
in the year 1721 Governor Charles Calvert was in doubt 
about the right of a person suspended from the council 
to retain his seat in the upper house,^ it is probable that 
from the time of the division of the Assembly into two 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1664, 
p. 130. 

2 Proceedings of the Council, 1671 to 1681, p. 10. 

3 L. H. J., February 20, 1721. 



198 MAIIVLANI) AS A PROl'KI KTAUV I'ltOVINCE 

houses none sat in the upper liouse except the ij^overnor 
and e(nineil, and after the year 1675 the governor was not 
considered a member of tliat body.^ 

This house was therefore small and required little 
organizing. The president of the council was of course 
the presiding officer after the governor ceased to be a 
member. The clerk of the council was the clerk of the 
nj)i)er liouse. It had no standing committees and, except 
when some of its members were appointed to serve on a 
joint committee of the two houses or to join in a confer- 
ence with some of the members of the lower house, it 
seems seldom to have done business other than as an 
entire body. The important things to be borne in mind 
with respect to it are that it was composed of the 
flower of the office-holding class ; that every member 
was kept dependent on the lord proprietor by being 
permitted to hold none of his government positions 
except during his pleasure ; and that through its advice 
given to the governor that house might exercise a strong 
control over the calling, proroguing, and dissolving of 
the Assembly. 

In the early years when proxies were chosen, all free- 
men, as well as freeholders, were not only entitled to a 
seat in the AsstMubly, but the Assembly voted to impose 
a tine of twent}- pounds of tobacco upon any who neg- 
lected to attend in person or by prox}-.^ For several 
years after it had become the custom to elect delegates, 
the only (pialilications prescribed were that voters should 
be freemen and that delegates should be discreet free- 
men.^ Such a practice gave to some small property 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1(171 to 1G81, p. 10; also, U. II. .T., 
October 25, 1725. 

■•i Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1037-38 to liiGl, p. 6. 
3 Ibid., p. 425. 



THE LEGISLATURE ' 199 

holders greater political privileges tlian those of tlie same 
class enjoyed in the mother country. 

But in the year 1666 the feeling between the upper 
house and tlie newly elected members of the lower house 
became bitterly hostile. Another meeting of the Assem- 
bly was not called until after the next election, three 
years later. That election proved to be in no way favor- 
able to the lord proprietor or his government ; and when 
those delegates met in the session of the year 1669, their 
unfriendly feeling was augmented by the lord proprietor's 
disallowance of several acts of assembly that had been 
passed three years before. Moreover, resistance was 
urged by Charles Nicholett, a clergyman, whom some of 
the members had asked to stir up the whole liouse to its 
duty. In a sermon to that body he requested the mem- 
bers to beware of the " sin of permission," stated that 
never before had so much been expected from a lower 
house as from the one he was addressing, and strongly 
recommended that tliey shoidd follow the House of Com- 
mons as their example. ^ Instead of granting the lord 
pro})rietor a subsidy for the support of government and 
as a recompense for the heavy expense he had incurred in 
founding the colony, the delegates presented a list of 
grievances, complained of heavy taxation, and gave the 
governor for but one year an export duty on tobacco of 
only sixpence per hogshead. As a consequence, that 
Assembly never met again; and when writs of election 
were issued, in December, 1670, suffrage was restricted to 
such freemen as had a freehold of at least fifty acres, 
or a visible estate of X40 sterling. The same quali- 
fications were also prescribed for delegates.^ At that 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1666 to 1676, p. 
159. 

^ Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, p. 77 et seq. 



200 MAKVr.AND AS A I'ROl'K I 1:TA IJ V PROVINCE 

time, too, tlie city of 8t. ^Mary's was given its first rei)re- 
sentation in tlie Assembly, and its delegates were chosen 
by its mayor, recorder, aldermen, and common council, 
all of them creatures of the governor. 

Such restriction of the suffrage was the occasion of one 
of the charges made against the government at the time of 
the threatened rebellion of 1G7GJ Yet, although the op- 
position of the lower house had l)ecome quite active again by 
the year 1G78, no complaint appears to liave been made by 
that body against the restriction of suffrage. An act of 
assembly passed tliat year provided for the continuance of 
the restriction, while it also disqualified sheriffs and inn- 
keepers from being elected delegates. That act was 
disallowed by the lord proprietor because of another pro- 
vision which it contained.^ But from the beginning of 
the royal government the qualifications provided by the 
act of 1678 became a law, and thereafter but slight 
changes were made in the qualitications of either voters 
or delegates until 177G. However, from the beginning of 
tlie royal government Catholics were disfranchised; and 
in the year 1708, when Annapolis was incorporated as a 
city in the place of St. Mary's, the qualifications of voters 
for the two city delegates were changed. The charter of the 
new city at first conferred the suffrage only on the mayor, 
recorder, aldermen, and common council, as had l)een done 
in the case of St. Mary's. But immediately after those 
magistrates had been sworn into office, they, with other in- 
habitants, petitioned tlie governor to extend the suffrage so 
as to include all freeholders ; that is, all who owned a 
house and lot within the cit}', all residents having a visible 
estate of the value of £20 sterling, and all persons who, 
after having served Wve years to any trade within the 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1G71 to 1(J81, p. 138. 

2 Ihid., p. :;78. 



THE LEGISLATURE 201 

city, should become housekeepers aud inliabitants. This 
petition was granted.^ Again, in tlie year 1715, residence 
within the county was coupled with the requirement as 
to the possession of personal property ; while compulsory 
voting was resorted to by the imposition of a fine of one 
hundred pounds of tobacco upon any qualified elector 
wlio failed to appear at an election. 

As already observed, the local unit of representation 
was at first the hundred. But in 1654, the year in which 
the proprietary government was temporarily superseded 
by the Puritan commissioners, that unit of representation 
was changed from tlie hundred to the county. After the 
restoration of the proprietary government in 1658, repre- 
sentation by counties was continued, while from 1671, as 
noticed above, one city also was represented. 

The Avrits of election issued during Governor Fendall's 
administration directed that four delegates should be 
chosen in each county. Those issued in the time of 
Governor Philip Calvert left it to each sheriff to cause 
the election of as many delegates as he saw fit. Tliose 
issued at the beginning of the administration of Gov- 
ernor Charles Calvert permitted the freemen to choose any 
number from one to four. But in 1670 the writ which 
restricted the suffrage directed that four delegates should 
be elected in each county ; ^ at the same time, in calling the 
first Assembly after an election under the new suffrage reg- 
ulation, the governor began the practice of summoning only 
a part of those who were elected. The saving of expense 
was assigned as the reason for not summoning all.^ It is 
not strange that such a reason did not satisfy. In 1676, 

1 Chancery Records. 

2 Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, p. 77. 

3 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1666 to 1676, p. 
241. 



202 MARYLAND AS A I'llurillETAKV PROVINCE 

after only two of the four delegates from each county Iiad 
been summoned, the lord proprietor was presented with a 
petition from delegates and other citizens, praying tliat 
thereafter a fixed number sliould be elected, that all who 
were elected should be summoned, and that, in case of a 
vacancy, a writ should be issued to fill the same by a new 
election.! As this was the time of Bacon's Rebellion in 
Virginia, and a time also when a similar uprising was 
threatening in Maryland, the lord pro})rietor agreed to 
comply with tlie request, but declared that thereafter he 
woukl exact of every delegate an oath of lidclity to 
himself.^ 

Accordingly, at the next session of Asseml)ly, ludd 
in the year 1078, four newly elected delegates were sum- 
moned from each county. At that session, an act was 
passed not only requiring tlie election of four delegates 
from each county and tAvo from the city of St. Mary's, 
but also obliging all that were elected to attend each 
session without waiting for a writ of summons. Anotlier 
session of Assembly was not held until nearly three years 
later, and the proclamation by whicli it was called con- 
tained the lord pr()[)rietor's veto of the act of 1G78, and 
also a declaration that after tlie next dissolution only two 
delegates should be elected.^ Then, too, although the 
lord proprietor must have known that tliere would be 
twelve vacancies among the forty-two seats in the lower 
house, no action was taken to till tliese. The failure to 
do so was a failure to keei^ his promise made in 1G7G, in 
reply to the petition of that year. As a consequence, 
from tlie time of issuing the proclamation to that of the 
meeting of the Assembly, there was nuieh talk among the 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, lOOG to 1G7G, pp. 
607, 508. ^ Ihicl, p. 508. 

8 Proceedings of the Council, lOTl to 1(581, p. ;378 et seq. 



THE LEGISLATURE 203 

people that there coukl be no Assembly without a new 
election to make a full house. Three days after the 
opening- of the session, the delegates presented the lord 
proprietor with an address in which they stated that 
the}^ conceived their house "• greatly incapacitated to 
act," and that they liad unanimously resolved that 
their speaker ought to issue out warrants for filling 
the vacancies according to the practice of the House of 
Commons.^ They prayed that the lord proprietor would 
appoint and constitute some officer to whom the speaker 
might direct such warrants. But both the lord proprie- 
tor and the upper house feared lest, by having the vacan- 
cies filled, a precedent might be established for making 
four delegates from each county necessary to constitute a 
lower house. Hence that body was a second time called 
before the upper house and urged to proceed to business. 
But for several days it seems to have proceeded to no 
other business than to frame a bill to provide that two 
delegates should be elected in each county, and that when 
there was a vacancy the speaker should direct his warrant 
to the secretary to issue a writ for an election to fill the 
same. During the contest over that bill, the lower house 
claimed that it was entitled to all the privileges of the 
House of Commons, whereas the upper house likened the 
inhabitants of Maryland to a conquered people. ^ The 
bill was not passed. But no other business was taken up 
until after tlie lord proprietor had instructed the secre- 
tary to issue writs for filling the eleven vacancies, so that 
each county should have its four representatives. It should, 
however, be stated that, although he ordered the writs to 
be issued, he declared tliat thereafter only two delegates 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1G78 to 1G83, pp. 
114, 115. 

^ Ibid, pp. 123-127. 



204 MAKVLAM) AS A PROPRIETARY I'ROVINCE 

should be elected from each county ; ^ and when an elec- 
tion was held the next year, his will in that particular 
was executed. 

The lord pr(>j)rietor had also been charged witli abusing 
his privilege t»f appointing sheriffs to control elections. 
The suinuioning of only a select part of the delegates 
looked too much like taking undue advantage of his char- 
ter right, while his neglect to lill vacancies was, to say the 
least, not according to English usage. It was also thought 
to be clear that the lord proprietor could not be left to 
enjoy all his charter rights as he saw fit without violating 
those provisions in the charter which guaranteed to the 
inhabitants of Maryland the privileges of English subjects. 
So, although the people of each county had complied with 
the writ for the election of oidy two delegates, they 
instructed those delegates to seek to have the former 
nnnil)er restored. The lower house, accordingly, asked 
the lord proprietor to agree to an act of assembly for pro- 
viding that thereafter writs should be issued for electing 
two, three, or four delegates from each count}', at the 
choice of the freemen."^ The}', however, asked in vain ; for 
the concluding part of the lord proprietor's answer was as 
follows : " I think your late request is of that nature that 
it will as well be inconvenient for the free men to accept as 
it may be dangerous for me to grant. What privileges 
and powers I have by my charter are from the King, and 
that of calling assemblies in such manner and way as I 
shall think fit, beino- an undeniable one amongst the rest, 
I cannot deem it honorable nor safe to lodge it in the 
freemen as you have desired, for it would be as reasonable 
for me to give away my power of calling and dissolving of 
assemblies as to give that of choosing the lunuber of dele- 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1078 to 1G83, pp. 
133, 134. 2 j(,i^i^ p. 4U7. 



THE LEGISLATURE 205 

gates. . . . Therefore, I hope you will not hence for- 
ward press anything of this nature to me, being resolved 
never to part with powers my charter gives me, but 
always to exercise them for the ease and welfare of the 
freemen under my care, and by so doing I shall ever be 
left able to render a good account of my great charge here 
to my Sovereign Lord the King, by whose grace, favor, 
and goodness I enjoy all I have. And so I rest. 
" Your very loving friend, 

"C. Baltimore." ^ 



In the face of such a reply the lower house continued its 
efforts to get the desired bill passed, and sought to accom- 
plish its end by withholding some of the lord proprietor's 
favorite bills. But whenever affairs arrived at such a 
status, the proprietor called the delegates before him in 
the upper house, and there prevailed upon them to yield. ^ 
In this way he for a time retained that right, but in so 
doing he added to the causes of the Revolution which soon 
followed, and which ended in depriving him of all right to 
govern. The first Assembly under the royal government 
easily passed an act prescribing a form of writ which 
directed the election of four delegates, and that number 
remained unchanged until the Revolution of 1776. From 
the beginning of the royal government, also, the speaker 
enjoyed the privilege of directing his warrant to the secre- 
tary to issue writs for filling vacancies, although it was 
not until 1718 that provision was made for this by legisla- 
tive enactment. The right of determining the number of 
delegates — all of whom had to do service in assembly — 
and of control over the filling of vacancies, like that of 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1678 to 1683, p. 416. 

2 Ibid. , p. 401 et seq. 



206 MAItVLANI) AS A T'HOlMtlETAltV PROVINCE 

fixing tlie qualiiicatioiis of voters and delegates, wlien once 
possessed by the legislative Assend)ly, was never lost. 

From 10»i<i to lOtil*, from lOTl to ltjT4, and from 1G81 
to 1684 there was no session of assembly. Except during 
these intervals, all of which fall within the administration 
of the first Charles Calvert, either as governor or as lord 
proprietor, there were very few years of proprietary govern- 
ment in which there was not at least one session of assem- 
bly. In the early years of the province there was frequent 
cause for calling it, and after the establishment of the royal 
government annual assemblies came to be looked upon as 
the rule. So it happened that, from the restoration of the 
proprietary government in 171 o until 1775, there were only 
three years — 1743, 1764, and 1767 — in which the Assembly 
did not meet. It was because of the great disquietude, and 
the opposition to the government at the time, that the lord 
proprietor ordered no assembly to be called in 1743. Al- 
though his order was obeyed. Secretary Jennings, with 
good reason, wrote that he doubted the exi)ediency of break- 
ing through the common rule at such a juncture. ^ The 
small-pox kept the Assembly from meeting in 1764, while 
the reason why it did not meet in 1767 does not appear. 

Again, with the exception of the years from 1671 to 
1676 and from 1676 to 1681, — during the administration 
of Charles Calvert, — there never was a time under the 
proprietary government in which there was not an election 
of delegates within intervals of about three veais or less. 
Prorogations before the Assembly had completed its busi- 
ness were rare — the most important ones of that nature 
beinor in 1730 and 1770. Kinallv, the anti-goverinr.ent 
party was almost invariably so strong that the governor 
seldom saw anything to be gained from a dissolution 
before the end of the three-year term. 

' Giluiore Papers. 



THE LEGISLATUKE 207 

Therefore, althongli the lord proprietor always retained, 
in form, his charter right to convene, prorogue, or dissolve 
the Assembly when he saw fit, it seems probable that he 
was permitted to do so only because he followed very 
closely the custom in vogue in the mother country, and 
seldom used those rights for the sole purpose of defeating 
the popular will. At any rate, the people were by no 
means indifferent with respect to the use lie made of the 
rights. In 1642, as a consequence of the movement that 
was then in progress in the mother country, protests were 
made against the lord proprietor's right to prorogue the 
Assembly. 1 ,. In 165-i, under the government of the Puri- 
tan commissioners, a law was made to require the calling 
of an assembly once every three years or oftener. / In 
1697, under the royal government, Governor Nicholson 
likened the General Assembly to the English Parliament, 
and stated that since a statute prohibited the continuance 
of one Parliament longer than three years, he thought best 
to dissolve the Maryland Assembl}" when it had continued 
about that length of time.^ He, accordingly, dissolved it, 
and thereby a precedent was established which was ever 
after followed until 1776. 

One of the most effective ways which the lower house 
had of asserting its power, was to call before it any minor 
officer against whom a public charge was brought, and, if 
found guilty, reprimand, fine, and even imprison him. 
But if he were imprisoned, the governor could cause him 
to be released by proroguing the Assembly. Frequent 
prorogations for that purpose could not have failed to 
provoke a lively controversy. It, however, seems to have 
happened but twice. Tlie first time, in 1739, it was rather 
quietly passed over. But after it had been repeated in 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1687-38 to 1664, pp. 
117, 180. 2 L. H. J., June 11, 1697. 



208 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETAUV IMtOVINCE 

1770, the lower house expressed its sentiment to the gov- 
ernor as follows : '" When we view as its effects, a con- 
siderable charge to the province ; a total stagnation of 
business for several days ; bills of importance before both 
houses unfinished, that must be taken up anew ; the jour- 
nals of accounts lying before the upper house ; the peti- 
tions of many peoi)le defeated, or with expense and 
difficulty renewed ; an inquiry into grievances of others 
stopped, and parties laid under the necessity either of 
attending a heavy expense or going away unheard ; a 
public officer released, and [)iil)lie justice evaded ; we can- 
not but complain of the prorogation as an undue and ill- 
advised exertion of power; that power with which your 
Excellency, as supreme magistrate, is constitutionally in- 
vested for the good of the people." ^ The closing words 
well illustrate how it had come to pass that the lord pro- 
prietor was to enjoy what was left to him of his original 
charter right of calling an assembly of freemen — in what- 
ever manner seemed best to him, and as often as need should 
require — only on condition thaf he used that right for the 
good of the people, the people themselves being judges. 

Still further, until the IJevolution of 1G89, the lord pro- 
prietor retained for himself the sole right of determining 
the manner of conducting elections and of making election 
returns. I'p to that time the writ of election, which was 
issued to the sheriff', simply connnanded that officer to pro- 
claim, as soon as convenient, to the qualified electors of 
his county, that an election was to be held at a date named 
by the sheriff. Then, at the appointed time, he was to 
hold the election and make return thereof to the secre- 
tary's office not later than a day named in the writ.^ Hut 

1 L. II. J., November 8, 1770. 

2 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1037-.18 to 1GG4, 
pp. 381, 425 ; Proceedings of the Council, 1G07 to 1087-88, pp. 77, 78. 



THE LEGISLATURE 209 

as early as 1666 a sheriff, who also held the office of 
county clerk, was charged with proceeding with an elec- 
tion contrary to the writ.^ In 1669 a sheriff caused the 
election of two delegates, and then made return of the 
election of but one.^ And at the time of the threatened 
rebellion of 1676 a complaint of general nature was made 
concerning the lack of freedom in elections. ^ 

A committee on privileges and elections first appeared 
in the lower house in 1678.* That same year the Assembly 
passed an act in the preamble of which the opinion was 
expressed that the safest and best rule for the province to 
follow in choosing delegates was the precedents of the Eng- 
lish Parliament, and that they should be conformed to as 
nearly as the constitution of Maryland would permit. 
The act, accordingly, required that immediately after the 
receipt of the writ, the sheriff should call a session of the 
county court, and during its session proclaim, or cause to 
be proclaimed, to the qualified electors of his county 
that there was to be an election of delegates at the next 
session of the county court, which was to be held within 
a reasonable time after the notice. After the election the 
sheriff should make return thereof to both the lord pro- 
prietor and the chancellor. These returns should state the 
time and the place of the election, and contain the names 
of the persons chosen and the signature of each voter. A 
penalty of one hundred pounds sterling should be imposed 
on any sheriff who neglected his duty with respect to 
liolding the election or making returns. Finally, provi- 
sion was made for the choice of two delegates by the 
mayor, recorder, aldermen, and common council of the 

1 Proceedings and Acts of tlie^ieneral Assembly, 1666 to 1676, p. 74. 
2/5W., p. 187. 

3 Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, p. 149. 
* Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1678 to 1683, p. 6. 
p 



210 MAItVLAND AS A I'lM H'l; I lOTAKV PROVINCE 

city of St. Mary's. Tlu' lord proprietor disallowed this 
act before an election was held under it.^ But after 1G89 
one of the charges was the violation of the freedom of 
elections ; - and at the beginning of the royal government 
re(iuirenicnts similar to those of the act of ItlTH became 
law, and with but slight modifications and additions re- 
mained in force until 177G. The principal additions w'ere 
made in 1715, when it was recjuired that writs should.be 
issued at least forty days before the meeting of the 
Assembly, and that the election should not be held within 
less than ten days from the time the sheriff gave notice of 
it. From that year, also, the sheriff was required to pre- 
pare for each delegate two indentures, each " having there- 
unto the sherilT's hand and seal, and the hands and seals 
of the several electors by them subscribed." One of 
those indentures the sheriff was to transmit to the chan- 
cellor, while the other he was to keep for his own justifi- 
cation. 

Ever after the establishment of the royal government, 
the lower house was active in asserting its control over, 
both the sheriff and the manner of conducting elections. 
Its committee on privileges and elections always made its 
rejjort some time during the first session after an election. 
In that report an election was not infrequently judged as 
undue. When it had been so declared by a vote of the 
whole house, the speaker issued his Avarrant to the secretary 
for a new election. Moreover, when such tiiiduc election 
was ascribed to the negligence of a sheriff, that sheriff was 
called before the house to answer for the same. In 1785, 
the house, 1)V a majority of only one, resolved that it 
should not necessarily be conclusive evidence that a per- 
son was entitled to vote merely because he swore that he 

1 Troceedings of the Council, 1G71 to 1G81, p. 378. 

2 Ibid., 1687-88 to 1(593, p. 215. 



THE LEGISLATURE 211 

possessed the visible personal estate required by law to 
qualify him as an elector, i 

In 1732 an act of assembly, to prevent bribery and cor- 
ruption in elections in the city of Annapolis, required 
every elector to take an oath that he had not been bribed. 
The same act declared that any one found guilty of per- 
jury, by reason of the oath prescribed, should, in addition 
to the usual penalty for perjury, be allowed neither to 
vote at any future election nor to be chosen a delegate. 
But the lord proprietor disallowed this act. Again, in 
1745, a bill in the lower house, for tlie better regula- 
tion of elections, failed to become a law. In 1749 the 
lower house resolved that it was " a high infringement of 
and a dangerous attack upon the liberties of the freemen " 
of the province for a member of the upper house to inter- 
est, intermeddle, or concern himself in an election of 
delegates. 2 Four years later that house passed the fol- 
lowing resolutions: " Resolved unanimously that all the 
statutes of England made for the security, confirmation, 
or advancement of the rights, liberties, and privileges of 
the British subjects for the prevention and detection of 
bribery and corruption and the maintenance and preserva- 
tion of freedom in elections, the direction, regulation of 
returning officers in their duty, and tlie qualification of 
electors, except in such cases wherein sufficient j)rovision 
hath been or shall be established by acts of assembly, 
have the force of laws within this province and as such 
ought uniformly and inviolably to be received and ob- 
served." 

" Resolved that it is and hath been a duty incumbent 
on every elector of a delegate or burgess to serve in 
assembly for this province to take the oath of an elector 
prescribed to be taken by the statute second of George 

1 L. n. J., April 3, 1735. 2 ma.^ June 10, 1794. 



212 MAKYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

the second, Chapter XXIV, before lie is admitted to vote 
or be i)olled at any election if required as is directed by 
the said statute."^ Finally, in 1768, it was resolved that 
in every case in which it should be found that there had 
been treating — the smallness or greatness of the treat 
not to be considered — from the time of the issue of the 
election writ until after the closing of the polls the elec- 
tion would be declared void.^ 

From very early times the people took a lively interest 
in the elections ; but it was not until the middle of the 
eighteenth century that such interest became decidedly 
intense. Party spirit existed ; but it Avas not so much 
the government party against the anti-government party 
as it was the radicals against the moderates, or the law- 
yers against the merchants. There is no direct proof that 
the candidates were ever nominated in caucus ; and yet 
the fierce election contest in Baltimore County in the year 
1752, in which each party had its four candidates, and a 
few similar cases, indicate that there was sufficient organiza- 
tion in some of the counties for a caucus.^ It is also clear 
that by the year 1750 elections were preceded by miuh 
loud and enthusiastic electionecringf. AlthouGfh the law 
left the sheriff wide discretion as to the manner in which 
he might conduct an election, in practice that olVu-er was 
to a considerable degree subject to the direction of the 
candidates. The voting took place in the courthouse, 
where one or two sworn clerks recorded the vote of each 
elector as it was given viva voce. If the crowd was too 
great, only a few at a time were admitted into the build- 
ing.* The polls were usually kept open only a day or 

1 L. H. J., Octolicr 18, IToS. 

2 Maryland Gazette, June 30, 17G8. 

' //<(■(/., February 13, and March 5, 1752. 
* Ibid, February 13, 1752. 



THE LEGISLATURE 213 

two ; but if any of the candidates could show cause, they 
were kept open for an entire week. 

Until the close of the seventeenth century, the governor 
and the upper house occasionally declared with effect that 
a certain delegate was disqualified to sit in the lower 
house.^ But ever after the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, the lower house was the sole judge of the elec- 
tions, returns, and qualifications of its own members. 
In the year 1722 it resolved that thereafter any delegate 
who accepted an office or pension from or under the gov- 
ernment, should be incapable of sitting longer as one of 
its members ; ^ and in the year 1731, by a vote of thirty- 
seven to four, that body expelled four of its members for 
accepting office.^ However, after it had done so, the gov- 
ernor called it before him in the upper house and told its 
members that no law of the province had disqualified the 
persons in question, charged them with attempting to 
give their own resolution a force equal to an act of the 
whole assembly, and of thereby "assuming a power entirely 
independent and indeed destructive of the other parts of 
the legislature and of the liberties and properties of his 
Majesty's subjects."^ He then dissolved the Assembly; 
and although three of the four who had been expelled 
were reelected, so, also, were nearly all of the other old 
members returned. 

In 1750 another expulsion of two members for the same 
reason was not followed by an immediate dissolution ; ^ 
and from that year until 1774 the lower house never 
wearied of sending to the upper house a bill for preserv- 
ing the independence of the former by providing that 
no one should accept an office while he was a member 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1678 to 1683, p. 115 

eti<C'q. 2 L. H. J., October 29, 1722. ? Ihid., March 25, 17.34. 

* Ibid., March 25, 1734, ^ Ibid., May 8 and 9, 1750 ; also June 20, 1746. 



214 MAKVLANI) AS A I'P.oi'Kl I:TA K V I'UOVINCE 

of the lower house, or for a certain iMiiiil)er of years after 
he ceased to be a member, ami that no one who already 
lield an oilice should be qualilied to become a member. 
The oilice of justice of a county court, however, seems to 
have been made an exception in that Inll. The upper 
house paid little attention to the bill, until 1774, when 
it gave the members of the lower house an opportunity to 
show the type of their patriotism by })assing- the l^ill with 
a few amendments, the chief of \\hich required that mem- 
bers of b(jth houses should give their service in assembly 
free of all charge, and that all who were elected delegates, 
should, at the time of taking their usual oaths to the gov- 
ernment, take also the following oath : " I, A. B., do 
solemnly swear that 1 have made use of no means directly 
or indirectly to deceive any elector in order or with the 
intent or design to obtain or procure his vote either for 
myself or any other person and that while I shall serve as 
a delegate or deputy in the General Assemblj' of this prov- 
ince, I will truly and faithfully, upon all occasions, consent 
and agree to the passing, ordaining, and enacting of all 
such resolves, regulations, and hiws as I shall believe in 
my conscience to l)e just and conducive to the peace, real 
welfare, and prosperity of this pi-ovince without any other 
regard or view whatsoever, and that I will op[)ose and 
dissent from all resolves, regulations, and laws which shall 
be proposed by any person, and which I shall believe in 
my conscience to be unjust or not conducive to the 
peace, real welfare, and prosperity of tliis province, and 
that I will not in any manner directly or indirectly 
misrepresent ray own conduct or views as a delegate 
or deputy, or the conduct or views of :iny other delegate 
or dej)uty in the general assembly in order to gain the 
vote of any elector for myself or any other person or to 
persuade or incline any elector, not to give his vote for 



THE LEGISLATURE 215 

any person who shall or may be a candidate at any elec- 
tion." ^ It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the bill as 
thus amended was not again heard from, and that it was 
well an opportunity was then so close at hand for all to 
direct their patriotic emotions in another channel. 

Previous to the Revolution of 1689 there was a marked 
dearth of parliamentary skill on the side of the opposition 
in the lower house. Although on some occasions mes- 
sages were boldly and plainly worded, they were wanting 
in persuasive and convincing force. The entire bearing 
of the opposition was of tlie nature of the sturdy planter 
or farmer rather than of the skilled parliamentarian. It 
was a body with but a very limited knowledge of English 
law and without able leadership. Then, too, as already 
observed, during the administration of the first Charles 
Calvert, the opposition was weakened as well as the sup- 
porters of the government strengthened by his interfer- 
ence in elections. In 1672 he wrote to the lord proprietor 
as follows : " Mr. Notley is now chosen speaker of our 
assembly, he and Mr. John Morecroft being chosen bur- 
gesses from the city of St. jNIary's, and by that means I 
got him into the assembly. Though Dr. Wharton be a 
good understanding man, yet Dr. Morecroft is mucli better 
to our purpose, being the best lawyer in the country, 
and has always been (upon other assemblies) a great as- 
serter of your Lordship's charter and the rights and privi- 
leges thereof. I durst not put it to an election in the 
counties, but took this way which I knew would certainly 
do what I desired. And now I have got Mr. Notley into 
the chair, I have assured him that with your Lordship's 
leave I am resolved to keep him there as long as he and 
I live together." 2 Furthermore, at almost every election 
during that early period less tlian twenty-five per cent of 

1 U. II. J., April 10, 17G4. 2 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 2G4. 



216 MARYLAND AS A PllOPRIETAlJY I'UOVINCE 

the old members was reelected. Consequently, advances 
toward greater parliamentary skill and able leadership 
were slow. 

Hut (hiring the period of the royal government several 
able lawyers made their appearance in the province. When 
they had found their way into the lower house, the once 
stiff blunt message slowly began to give way to one that 
Avas more logical, graceful, and fier}-. Occasionally there 
was a reelection of a larger portion of the old members ; 
until, finally, from the time of the outbreak of the contro- 
versy over English statutes, in 1722, until the end of the 
proprietary government, there was seldom an election in 
which at least fifty per cent of the old members were not 
reelected — sometimes even sixty or seventy per cent. 
From 1740 there were always a few members, like Henry 
Hooper, Thomas Worthington, John Mackall, and Phil 
Hammond, who had seen service in that house for twenty 
years or more. It is unquestionably true, however, that 
from 1789 to 1760 the leaders of the opposition, such as 
IMiil llaunnond, were patriots of an inferior type. They 
were unreasoning radicals, determined to ()[)pose the gov- 
ernment in every possible way, even to the sacriliee of the 
real welfare of tlie country, and to delude their ignorant 
constituents in order to retain power. ^ In 1749 the com- 
mittee on elections and privileges reported that it had of 
late become customary for candidates long before and at 
the time of election to give uncommon entertainments and 
there, after getting people drunk, get their promise. ^ In 
1754 Governor Sharpe, after giving the lord proprietor 
an account of the conduct of the lower house, wrote : "• I 
beg to ask your Lordship's consideration whether it be 
imi)racticable or improper to fall upon an}' method to put 
a stop to such })erverseness as might generall}' be per- 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. OH H siq. ^ L. II. J., Juiio 17, 1719. 



THE LEGISLATURE 217 

ceived in the proceedings of the lower house of assembly 
which is in a great measure owing to the short duration 
of our sessions which terminate at the end of three years. 
Few gentlemen will submit so frequently to the inconven- 
iences that such a canvass for seats in that house must 
necessarily subject themselves to. By which means there 
are too many instances of the lowest persons, at least men 
of small fortunes, no soul, and very mean capacity, appear- 
ing as representatives of their respective counties. As 
there would be no want, I apprehend, of gentlemen to 
appear as candidates if the drudgery of electioneering 
was. to return less frequently, I submit to your Lordship's 
wisdom whether there may be any impropriety (if a more 
agreeable choice of members should be made) in continu- 
ing the next assembly for more years than has been lately 
usual or customary." ^ The interval between elections was 
not lengthened. But Hammond died in 17(30, and two 
years after his death the same governor wrote : " We 
have had a general election at wliich many well-behaved, 
sensible men were chosen in the stead of such as I never 
desired to see again in the house." ^ 

From that time until the Revolution the leading mem- 
bers of the lower house were mostly able lawyers from 
such of the best families of the province as the Golds- 
boroughs, Bordleys, Pacas, Keys, Halls, Johnsons, Tilgh- 
mans, Chases, Gales, Worthingtons, Hoopers, Ringgolds, 
Ridgleys, Lloyds, and Hollidays. 

Finally, during the last years of the proprietary gov- 
ernment, a capable observer wrote as follows with respect 
to the lower house : " The delegates returned are persons 
of the greatest consequence in their different counties, 
and many of them are frequently acquainted with the 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 68. 

2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 24. 



218 MAKVLANU A8 A PUOl'lCl r.TAU V I'UOVINX'E 

political aiul commercial interests of tlieir constituents. 
1 have frequently heard subjects debated with great 
powers of eloquence and force of reason ; and the utmost 
regularity and ])r()[)riety distinguish the whole of their 
proceedings." ^ 

In 1G50, the year in which the representative system 
became permanent, each delegate received fifty pounds of 
tobacco — equivalent to ten or twelve shillings — for 
each day's service in asseml)]y, besides an allowance to 
cover the necessary ferry expenses. In 1601, after the 
price of tol)acco had fallen, each delegate received 150 
pounds of tobacco a day besides the ferry expenses. But 
in 1662 the members of the upper house, who liad hitherto 
received nothing fi-om the country for their service in 
assembly, made a request for a legislative enactment to 
provide payment for their own services as well. The con- 
sequence of w^hich was that from that time until after 1688 
the members of the upper liouse continued to receive from 
the country no compensation for their service while the 
allowance to the delegates was reduced to payment only 
for their food and lodging, during the session, and the 
necessary ferr}' ex})enses.''^ 

Until 1676 the allowance to the delegates from any one 
county was paid by that county, although levied ui)on it 
])y the General Assembly ; but from that year the allow- 
ance to delegates was paid in the public levy on the 
whole province. When the upper house was asked to 
consent to the change, it expressed the desire that its 
members should be allowed 200 pounds of tobacco a 
day, while those of the lower house should be allowed 
150 pounds.^ But its desire was again left unsatisfied ; 

1 E.Ulis, p. 120. 

2 Proceedings and Acts of the Goiioral Assoinbly, lOoT—IS to 1G(!4, pp. 
439, 440, 456. » Jl'hl. KIOC to 1076, p. 609. 



THE LEGISLATURE 219 

and in 1682 the lower house resolved that its members 
were the only representatives of the freemen, and that the 
public ought not to bear the charge or expense of the 
members of the upper house. ^ 

Under the royal government, however, an act of 
assembly was passed which allowed 150 pounds of 
tobacco a day to the members of the upper house and 
140 pound to the members of the lower house, besides 
itinerant charges. Although, on several occasions, propo- 
sitions were offered to reduce that allowance or to dis- 
pense with it entirely, it may be doubted if any of them 
were strictly serious. For the lower house usually made 
the proposition of a one-half reduction in connection 
with some other movement, such as the reduction of fees; 
and the upper house replied to the same by proposing 
that both houses should serve the country gratuitously. 
With the exception of the year 1733, the lower house 
seems never to have considered the question of going 
that far.2 Consequently, the allowance as first fixed by 
the law under the royal government remained unchanged 
during the proprietary government of the eighteenth 
century. 

The organization of the lower house and the manner 
of its procedure, with but few interruptions, grew more 
and more like that of the British House of Commons. 
Its officers were at first only the speaker and the clerk ; 
but it soon had a doorkeeper and a sergeant-at-arms. It 
always chose its own speaker. The choice, however, had 
to be confirmed by tlie governor. At the time the 
Assembly was divided into two houses the governor chose 
the clerk of each house. From then until 1671 the lower 
house usually chose its own clerk. From that year until 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1678 to 1683, p. 373. 

2 L. H. J., April 10, 1733. 



220 MAIIYLANU AS A PKOPKIET All V I'KUVINCE 

the beginning of the royal government the governor or 
the lord proprietor seems to have been permitted to choose 
that officer. Again, in 1708, the governor attempted to 
revive the practice of the period from 1671 to 1689.^ He, 
however, was unsuccessful, and the house ever after con- 
tinued to choose its own clerk, although that choice had 
to be confirmed by the governor. ^ 

Previous to 1689 the small membership of the lower 
house and the very limited amount of business transacted 
therein were unfavorable to the development of a com- 
mittee system. A committee to audit accounts Avas, how- 
ever, early appointed ; and to that committee was at 
times joined either a part or the whole of the other house. 
A committee on laws, either with or without some mem- 
bers of the upper house, was occasionally appointed to 
prepare bills. In 1678 a committee on privileges and 
elections was appointed. But it was not until the es- 
tablishment of the royal government that the committee 
on privileges and elections, the committee on laws, the 
committee on grievances, and the committee on accounts 
became standing connniltees. With the exception of the 
one on laws they were continued until 1776. From 1722 
the committee on grievances was also a committee on 
courts of justice and instructed to iiKpiirc into the forms 
of oaths, commissions, and other public documents. 
Finally, from 1732 there was usually a committee to 
view the condition of the arms and aiinnunition and to 
inspect the accounts relating to tlie fund therefor, and 
also a joint committee of the two houses to inspect the 
accounts of the paper currency office. 

Previous to 1689 the procedure upon opening a newly 
elected assembly was very short and sim})le. It con- 
sisted in little more than the choice of a speaker, his 

1 L. 11. J., Septenibor 27, 1708. - //'/(/., May 11, 1749. 



THE LEGISLATURE 221 

acceptance by the governor, and the passing of some rules 
of order. Until 1678 the governor's opening speech 
seems to have been of little consequence. Until 1682 
the speaker did not ask for privileges. No oath was 
taken by the delegates before 1678. Prior to 1692 
there were no standing committees to appoint; and un- 
til 1722 there were no standing resolutions to agree 
upon. 

But from the closing years of the seventeenth century, 
after a newly elected assembly had met, the order of pro- 
cedure varied little, and was somewhat as follows : Two 
delegates first informed the governor that a sufficient num- 
ber of delegates had met to compose a lower house. Two 
members of the upper house and its clerk then entered 
the lower house and administered to each delegate pres- 
ent the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, abjuration, and 
test. When all had taken those oaths, two members 
of the upper house were sent to tell the delegates that 
the governor required their attendance in the upper house. 
As soon as they had come, the governor required them 
to return to their own house and choose a speaker. 
When the choice had been made, two members of the lower 
house informed the governor. Whereupon two members 
of the upper house were sent to tell the lower house that 
the governor required them to come to the upper house 
to present their speaker. After the governor had approved 
of the choice of a speaker, that officer, in the name of the 
lower house, desired the governor, on the lord proprietor's 
behalf, to allow the delegates freedom of speech and all 
other of their ancient privileges and liberties. After those 
were promised, the governor delivered his opening speech 
to both houses. 

The delegates then returned to their own house and 
chose a clerk. Two members of the lower house at once 



222 MAliVr.AM) AS A PROritlETAIlV riMtVINCE 

informed the governor of llu'ir choice, and desired liis 
a})proval. Upon receiving that, two members of the 
lower honse went with the clerk to the upper house to see 
him qualify by taking the several oaths. A sergeant- 
at-arms and a doorkeeper were next chosen. Finally, 
after the lower house had agreed upon its rules of order, 
appointed its committees, and — after 1722 — agreed upon 
its standing resolutions, it was ready to consider the gov- 
ernor's opening speech. 

Whatever l)ills originated in the lower house, as well 
as messages and addresses, were usually framed by a 
part or the whole of the committee on laws. No l)ill was 
ordinarily read twice on the same day. After any bill 
had passed the second reading it was sent by a com- 
mittee to the other house. ^ The methods of adjusting 
differences betw^een the two houses were by messages and 
conferences. A bill wdiich had passed two readings in one 
house might pass the second reading in the other with 
some amendments. But, whether amended or not, no bill 
could become a law until it had passed the third reading 
in both houses and received the governor's signature, 
which was given in the upper house usually at the close 
of the session, both houses being present. 

During the first few years after the founding of the 
colony, the lord proprietor sought to reserve to himself 
or to the governor in council the sole right of initiating 
legislation. For that reason he disallowed all the acts 
passed by the first Assembly, in 1634-35, which it seems 
probable was called without his special directions ; and 
at about the time that he ordered his dissent to be pub- 
lished, he sent over a draught of several laws, authorized 
the governor to prepare others, and gave the freemen no 
other option than to pass all of those laws without any 

^ From the year 17;)2 the yeas and nays were frequently recorded. 



THE LEGISLATURE 223 

amendment or else to pass none at all.i When the Assem- 
bly had given them some consideration, the governor and 
the secretary gave fourteen votes for themselves and their 
proxies in favor of their passing, but all of the remaining 
thirty-seven votes were given in opposition to them. 
Later in the same session it was voted that those laws 
should be taken up one by one instead of as a whole body. 
Finally the Assembly, again practically assuming the right 
of initiative, passed such acts as it saw fit ; and it was 
reported that both the governor and the secretary had 
declared the laws sent by the lord proprietor to be unfit 
for the colony .2 At any rate, the governor wrote to the 
lord proprietor that since there were so many things in 
them which were unsuitable to the people's good and no 
way profitable to the lord proprietor, and since the free- 
men had been given the privilege neither of selection 
among them nor of amending them, they desired to sus- 
pend them all. Moreover, the governor gave it as his 
opinion that those passed by the Assembly would be as 
much to the lord proprietor's honor and profit as those 
sent by his lordship. ^ The result was that although 
the lord proprietor rejected this second body of laws 
sent over to him, he surrendered, in 1638, his claim to the 
sole right of initiating legislation, and declared that for 
the future all acts passed by the Assembly, assented to 
by the governor, and not contrary to the laws of England, 
should be in force, so long as he did not declare his rejec- 
tion of them.^ 

But troublous times followed ; and about ten years later, 
just after the suppression of a rebellion, tlie lord proprietor 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 163G to 1667, p. 5L 

2 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 158. 

3 Ihid., p. 189 Pt seq. 

* Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1664, p. 31. 



224 MARYLAND AS A PllomiETARY PIJOVINCE 

endeavored to purchase some control over the initiation of 
legishition by sending over a body of sixteen hiws, and 
deckiring that only on condition that the Assembly, with- 
out amendment, passed them all as perpetual laws — that 
is, laws Avithout any limitation as to their duration — 
would he agree to allow the country to receive one-half 
of his customs duties on tobacco exported in Dutch ships. 
To such a proposition, however, the Assembly replied : 
" We do humbl}' request your Lordship hereafter to send 
us no more such bodies of laws, which serve to little other 
end than to fill our heads with suspicious jealousies and 
dislikes of that which verily we understand not." ^ 

Thus ended in failure the lord proprietor's second 
attempt to control the initiative in legislation. He never 
made another. After the legislative Assembly had once 
ac([uired that right, it never lost it. Charles Calvert, how- 
ever, first as governor and later as lord proprietor, was 
accustomed to cause bills to be introduced into the Assem- 
bly ; and in case the lower house refused to pass them, he 
would call that body before him in the upper house and 
there exert all the pressure at his command. 

From the beginning of the eighteenth century dis- 
agreement with respect to any proposed legislation was 
attended to almost solely by messages between the two 
houses, between the governor and the lower house, or by 
conference of a few members from each house. Further- 
more, following English precedent, from the establishment 
of the royal government money bills could originate only 
in the lower house. From 1740 the upper house was 
denied the right to anu'iul such bills: and at tiuies, also, 
the lower house even declined to confer with the other 



' Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1037-38 to 1004, pp. 
240, 241, 243 ; also p. 202 et acq. 



THE LEGISLATURE 225 

house with respect to disputed points in any bills of that 
kind. 

Until 1681 the lord proprietor reserved to himself an 
unlimited time in which to veto any act passed by the 
Assembly and assented to by the governor. But there 
was no occasion to charge him with abuse of that right 
until 1669, when he vetoed several acts after they had 
been in force for three years. When he had done so the 
lower house presented it as a grievance that there was no 
one in tlie province who was authorized so to assent to an 
act that it could not thereafter be annulled without the 
consent of both houses of Assembly.^ The matter was, 
however, dropped, and nothing was heard of it again for 
twelve years, when the lord proprietor again vetoed a 
favorite act that had been passed three years before. This 
time the lower house endeavored to secure the j)assage of an 
act which should provide that the governor's assent be final. 
When the upper house had refused to pass it, the lower 
house presented the lord proprietor with a petition regard- 
ing the matter. In reply the lord proprietor agreed that 
thereafter when he was present in the province he would 
give his assent or dissent to any act before the conclusion 
of the session at which it was passed, and that when he 
was out of the province he would give such assent or dis- 
sent within eighteen months after the passing of the act. 
Attempts of the lower house at the two following sessions 
to have such an agreement embodied in a law of unlimited 
duration were, however, unsuccessful, even though the 
lower house agreed to extend the time to twenty months. ^ 

The Revolution followed, and under the royal govern- 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1066 to 1076, p. 161 
et seq. 

2 Ibid., 1678 to 1683, pp. 118, 152, 160, 175, 178, 181, 182, 508, 509, 512, 
592, 594, 596 ; ibid., 1684 to 1692, pp. 31, 35, 38, 40, 49, 97, 100, 108, 388. 

Q 



22G MAllVLAND AS A I'KOPltlETAUV I'KOVINCE 

ment the rif^ht of the crown to exercise tlie veto power 
was never disputed. Then, from the time of the restoration 
of the proprietary government to tlie year 1720 inchisive, 
the lord proprietor vetoed — in each case quite })romptly 
— at least fifteen acts. After four of them had been 
rejected in tliat one year, the lower house complained of 
the lord proprietor's frequent exercise of the power as a 
grievance, and as not warranted by the charter, and asked 
the upper house to join with it in taking whatever steps 
were deemed necessary to settle the matter.^ It is difh- 
cult to conceive on what ground that right of the lord 
proprietor could have been seriously ciilled in question, 
except that tlie English crown liad ceased to exercise the 
same right with respect to acts of Parliament. Then, 
too, the lord proprietor was a non-resident, wliose cliief 
interest lay in his territorial revenue. So, although he 
Avas in one sense clear as to his right, he, like the crown, 
was taught to realize that it was not expedient for him to 
make use of it. lie vetoed an act in the year 1732, and 
then did not again exercise that power for ten years, when 
he did so for the last time. Thereafter, the lower house 
effectively expressed its doubt as often as the question 
was raised, 2 

Still further, the extreme radicals, under the influence 
of Pennsylvania, were not contented with denying the 
lord ])i'o})ric'tor all right to act as a part of the legislature, 
but they even denied that the u[)per house had any place 
whatever in the constitution.'^ Moreover, as the lower 
house came to iiiid the otlier tlii-ee parts of the legislature 
more and more opposed to such measures as it most 
strongly contended for, that body made its power felt 
more and more by passing resolutions to influence the 

1 L. II. J., Auirust 5, 1720 ; see also Calvert Papers, No. 2, pp. 00, 03. 
- L. II. J., April 27, 1758. ^ Ibid., December 2, 1757. 



THE LEGISLATURE 227 

courts as well as public opinion,^ and by calling before its 
bar any minor officer charged with offence. Thus, in 
1758, Governor Sharpe wrote the following : " Our Lower 
House has indeed, of late years, claimed a right of calling 
before them any person they thought proper, and their 
commands have been generally obeyed, though as gen- 
erally exclaimed against as oppressive. . . . They have 
assumed all the powers of a British House of Commons, 
and have for some years been exercising those powers 
in such a manner as tended to render all the inferior 
courts of judicature contemptible or subservient to their 
purposes."^ 

The first great increase in the power of the Assembly 
was made when it gained the right of initiating legisla- 
tion. The second was at the beginning of the period of 
royal government, when the lower house gained so much 
control over its own organization, and when the transaction 
of so many branches of public business was taken from 
the council and put in charge of the Assembly. The later 
growth in power of the popular branch will be more fully 
seen after due attention has been given in the following 
chapters to the great controversies in Assembly over 
important questions, such, for example, as those relating to 
the English statutes, officers' fees, dues of the clergy, the 
militia law, a fund for arms and ammunition, license money 
from ordinaries, fines and forfeitures, the support of the 
council of state, taxing the most lucrative offices and the 
lord proprietor's estates and quit-rents, and the appoint- 
ment of an agent to represent the lower house before the 
home government. 

1 L. H. J., March 20, 1732-1733, and April 10, 1733. 

2 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 124; also L. H. J., May 11 
and 20, 1738. 



CHAPTER III 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 

In accordance with the old conception of a king as God's 
anointed, and therefore the fountain of justice within his 
reahn, the lord proprietor was, in theory, solely intrusted 
with the power to administer justice in Maryland. But 
he, in his turn, transferred the power to administer it to 
the governor as chief justice, chancellor, and admiral, to 
the members of the council as associate justices, and 
to such other officers as the governor in council chose to 
appoint for that purpose. In the early commissions, the 
governor, as chief justice, was given the sole authority to 
hear, determine, and pronounce judgment in all cases both 
civil and criminal, save that whenever life, member, or 
freehold was at stake, the lord proprietor required that at 
least two of the council should sit as judges with liim.^ 
And in those same commissions each member of the coun- 
cil was made a justice of the peace. 

However, in matters pertaining to justice, the usage and 
custom of the mother country had an important influence 
on Maryland practice. As in the old Anghi-Saxon sliire- 
moot, and particularly in the county of Durham, the free- 
men had been accustomed to meet in tlie capacity of a 
law court, as well as in that of a legislative assembly, so 
also, in Maryland, previous to the division of the Assem- 
bly into two houses, that body occasionally tried offenders 

1 Proceedings of the Couiifil. U5.)C to 1067, p. 53. 
228 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 229 

charged with having committed any offence, from that of a 
simple misdemeanor to that of piracy, murder, or treason. ^ 
But after the division, the judicial functions of the upper 
house were restricted to those of a high court of appeals, 
and from 1692 even that jurisdiction was intrusted to the 
governor and council ; while the jurisdiction of the lower 
house as a law court became limited to the trial of minor 
officers charged with neglect or injustice in the perform- 
ance of their duties. 

But the Assembly at no time tried more than a small 
part of all the cases that arose. By the year 1638 the gov- 
ernor had become chief justice, and the members of the 
council associate justices in what was called the county 
court, which, next to the Assembly, was the supreme 
court of the province. ^ Below the governor as chief jus- 
tice and the members of the council as associate justices 
were the inferior justices of the courts in the smaller local 
districts. By the year 1642 the name of the court in 
which the governor and council were justices was changed 
from county court to provincial court. From that year 
until 1685, with the governor and council as justices, the 
provincial court was in no way limited or restricted in 
original jurisdiction over any case arising anywhere 
within the province, and it had appellate jurisdiction over 
all cases brought from the county courts. Under such 
conditions it was not to be expected that there would be 
many appeals from the governor and council, sitting as a 
provincial court, to the governor and council sitting as a 
court of appeals in the upper house of the legislative body. 
There were, however, several such instances ; and in a few 
cases the judgment of the lower court was reversed. 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1664, pp. 
16, 17, 18, 119. 

2 Ihid., pp. 47, 48, 49, 83. 



230 MARYLAND AS A PIIOPRIETA K V IMJOVINCE 

Of the courts below the provincial court tliere were, at 
one time or another, the nianoriul courts, the hundred 
court, the county court, and the court of a single justice 
of tlie })euce for the recovery of small debts. But of the 
manorial courts, which never grew to any great importance, 
sutlicient notice has already been taken. ^ 

Previous to KioO it does not appear that tliere was any 
erection of counties in an exj^ress and formal way ; yet, 
in reality, the western slioi-e was treated as one county, 
called St. Mary's, and the eastern shore was treated as 
another county, called Kent. The more important settle- 
ments on the western shore were erected into liundreds as 
constituent parts of St. Mary's County, while those on 
the eastern shore were erected into hiuuhi'ds as constitu- 
ent parts of Kent County. Whenever a hundred was 
erected, its head olhcer was constituted a justice of the 
peace. I nder him was the constable. He was appointi'd 
either by the justice or by the governor, and was intrusted 
-with the duties both of constable and coroner. As justice 
of the peace, the head officer of the hundred was given 
such power as belonged to one or even to two justices of 
the peace in England. Certain grievous offenders he was 
directed to bind over to the county court for trial ; but 
others he was authorized not only to try but to punish by 
imprisonment, fine, or corporal punishment, provided the 
line did not exceed a certain fixed number of ][)Ounds of 
tobacco, or that the C()rj)oi'iiI punishment did not involve 
the loss of life or member.'^ 

Since in St. Mary's County the governor and council at 
first conslilutc(l the county t-oui't as a supreme court for 
the entire province, it was in Kent County that what be- 
came the ordinary county court first began to develop. 

^ Siiiira, pp. 52, ")3. 

2 Proceedings of the Cuuucil, 1G3G to l(i(i7, pp. 70, 89, 90. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 231 

The first step toward the organization of such a court was 
taken in December, 1G37, wlien Governor Calvert com- 
missioned Captain George Evelin as military commander 
of that island, authorized him to choose six or more able 
persons to advise him, empowered him to appoint all other 
officers necessary for the preservation of the peace or the 
execution of justice, and also authorized him to hold a 
court as often as need should require for the trial of civil 
cases not extending to life or member. ^ The commission 
thus constituting the court for that county was for several 
years frequently renewed and modified. In 1639 three 
assistants of the commander were appointed by the gov- 
ernor.2 In 1642 those assistants of the commander were 
styled commissioners, and the jurisdiction in civil matters 
was made to include all cases not extending to a free- 
hold.^ In the same year, also, by act of assembly express 
provision was made for appeal from that court to the pro- 
vincial court. 

In 1649 the lord proprietor gave instructions for the 
erection of a new county, and appointed its commander. 
The powers which he defined for that officer were almost 
exactly the same as those given by the first commission 
to the commander of Kent Island.* But those instruc- 
tions were never executed. When Anne Arundel County 
was erected the next year, Governor Stone appointed both 
the commander and the seven commissioners, and author- 
ized the commander, with any three or more of the com- 
missioners, to hold court from time to time for the trial of 
criminal cases not extending to life or member, and all 
civil cases, regardless of value, saving only the right of 
appeal to the provincial court whenever the value in 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1(330 to 1667, p. 59. 

2 Ibid., p. 88 et seq. 

3 Ibid., p. 124 et seq. * Ibid., p. 237 et seq. 



232 MAUVLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROV^INCE 

question was equal to or exceeded £20 sterling or two 
thousand pounds of tobacco.^ 

Finally, in 1058 and 1661, tlie organization of the county 
court assumt'd its final form. The eonniiaiuler was 
dropped, and in his stead four or more of the commis- 
sioners, or justices, were named as justices of the quorum ; 
and no court could be held unless at least four of the jns- 
tices were present, of wliom a justice of the quorum was 
to be one. Each justice was required to take a prescribed 
oath. A clerk was appointed. Provision was made for 
a grand jury to make inquest. AVhile jurisdiction in 
criminal cases was unchanged, in civil matters it was at 
this time limited to cases in which the value did not ex- 
ceed three thousand pounds of tobacco. Thereafter there 
was little change with respect to the county courts except 
in the extent of their jurisdiction.^ 

After the erection of counties, the hundred court seems 
to have disappeared. But in 1678 an act of assembly, 
which provided for the recovery of any debt not exceeding 
fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco before a single justice 
of the provincial court or before any two justices of a 
county court, was the first action taken toward providing 
in each county a court for the recovery of small debts 
before a single justice. 

Before 1689 three other courts of justice liad been more 
or less distinctly organized, but the cliief administrator in 
each of them was always some justice of the provincial 
court. They were the chancery court, the admiralty 
court, and the probate court. Until 1661 the governor 
was chancellor. But from that year until 1689 Philip 
Calvert, an uncle of the governor and always a justice 
of the provincial court, held that office. Until 1684 the 

' Proceeiliiiirs of the Council, 1G30 to 1007, p. 257, 258. 
2 Ibid., pp. 348, 422, 423, 424. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 233 

governor, with or without the assistance of his associates 
in the provincial court, was judge of the admiralty court. 
But in that year that court was given a constitution 
separate from that of the provincial court, although 
one of the justices of the provincial court was appointed 
judge of the admiralty court. As early as 1G38-39 
an act of assembly made the secretary judge of probate, 
and authorized him to grant letters of administration. 
As such he remained until 1G73, when that office was 
given to the chancellor, and provision was made for an 
appeal from his decisions in probate cases to the lord 
proprietor, to the governor, or to such other persons as 
the lord proprietor or the governor should appoint for that 
purpose. 

Before 1689, therefore, each of the two houses of 
Assembly had some distinctly judicial functions. But 
ordinarily the provincial court was the supreme court 
of the province. Its justices were appointed not during 
good behavior, but during the pleasure of the lord pro- 
prietor. Moreover, those justices were the governor and 
council as well as the upper house of the legislative 
Assembly. Very closely connected with that supreme 
court were the chancery court, the admiralty court, and 
the probate court. The only inferior courts of much 
importance were the several county courts, the organi- 
zation, jurisdiction, and appointment of justices for 
wliich were determined almost solely by the justices of 
the provincial court. During the earliest years of the 
colony there was considerable legislation relating to the 
courts of justice; but from 1647, especially from 1661 
until the Revolution of 1689, it was a growing tendency 
of the lord proprietor or the governor to prevent the 
interference of the lower house and to make the system 
for the administration of justice more and more strongly 



234 MAKVLANI) AS A rilOIMMirr A KV I'UOVINCE 

centralized. All was to be kept as dependent as possible 
on the l()i-(l i)r()[)rit't(tr as the fountain head. 

Hal with the rsiahlishnient of the royal government 
decentralization began. The governor and council, in- 
stead of the upper house, was at once constituted as the 
court of a[)peals. Although members of the council were 
still allowed to 1)0 justices of the provincial court, the one 
body grew more and more distinct from the other. iVfter 
lt»'.>:2 the governor was never the chief justice of the pro- 
vincial c(Mu-t. Ill 1709, and again in 1720, the lower house 
presented it as a grievance that the members of the council 
were also justices of the provincial court. ^ The consequence 
was the establishment of a precedent that a justice who 
had sat in the provincial court during the trial of any 
case should not sit with the governor and council when 
they heard the same case on appeal.^ Moreover, it is 
probable that it w'as this very precedent that tended 
to cause a decreasing number of the council to be ap- 
pointed justices of the provincial court. After 1730 it 
was seldom that more than two or three of the council 
were justices of the provincial court, and when, in 17^0, 
there were two, the attorney general himself recommended 
that they should be replaced by others. He did so because 
he felt that by their sitting in the provincial court the 
court of appeals had on some occasions been deprived 
of their judgment when much needed there. ^ 

Again, in 1(392, the governor, with the approval of the 
council, separated the office of chancellor from that of 
his own ; and although royal instructions, received in 
1699, directed that those offices sliould be reunited, the 
lower house had little difficulty in having the governor 
place some restrictions u})on himself in that office. Thus, 

1 L. II. J., October 21, 1720. "- U. II. J., October 20, 1720. 

8 Portfolio 4, No. 53, Boixlley to Sharpe. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 235 

in that same year, 1699, he agreed that two of the council 
should assist him in the court of chancery on the first hear- 
ing, and that in case a rehearing was asked for he would 
have at least live of the council sit with him.^ In 1718 
the governor and council, yielding to the request of the 
lower house, consented to the passage of an act of 
assembly whereby, — although the governor as chancellor 
might sit alone during the first hearing, — upon a rehear- 
ing, the council Avas to sit with him. Finally, by the middle 
of the century, the chancellor had ceased to sit in the court 
of appeals when that court was hearing a chancery case. 

It appears then that, while under the first period of pro- 
prietary government the centralization of the system of 
administration of justice was increased, from the over- 
throw of that government in 1689 the most extreme 
features of that centralization were gradually abandoned 
in response to the needs of administration, until the court 
of appeals, the chancery court, and the provincial court 
became quite distinct from each other. 

Furthermore, from the beginning of the royal govern- 
ment the lower house quite successfully contended that 
no courts or offices involving the imposition of new fees 
could be erected without its consent. Although the 
lower house, in 1692, expressed a desire for circuit courts, 
yet when the board of trade recommended that justices 
of the provincial court should hold circuit courts in the 
several counties, and when the governor and council, in 
support of that recommendation, endeavored to secure a 
legislative provision for the same, the lower house does 
not seem to have favored the plan. Still, that house kept 
referring the matter to the next Assembly — perhaps that 
the desire of the people might be ascertained — until in 
1701 it was totally rejected. ^ The board of trade, 

1 U. H. J., July, 1G99. 2 l. PI. J., May 14, 1701. 



236 MARYLAND AS A PR(»lMnETARV PROVINCE 

however, would not yet allow its recommendation to be 
dropped. In 1707 it offered some modification of its 
former plan, and then prevailed npon the crown to issue 
an instruction that its revised })lan should be executed.^ 
Whereupon, in accordance with that plan, the governor 
and council jiroposed that the justices of the provincial 
court should be reduced to four, that the sessions of tlie 
provincial court at Annapolis should be reduced from 
six to four a year, that those four justices should hold 
circuit courts in the several counties twice a year, and 
that the Assembly should settle upon each of them an 
annual salary of at least .£100 per annum, besides their 
travelling expenses. Then the governor, in a speech at 
the opening of a session, strongly urged that legislative 
provision should be made for tlie execution of the pro- 
posed plan, and intimated that upon the failure of the 
Assembly to make such provision, the crown would send 
over justices from England. But the lower house still 
held out. However, in 17<*,S, it requested that an account 
of the proposed expense should he laid Ijcftn-e it. In 
response to that request the governor showed that, while 
the annual cost to the country by the old plan had been 
83,908 pounds of tobacco, by the proposed plan it would 
be 100,000 pounds ; but he promised that so long as he 
should remain in the country he would give each year 
5000 pounds of tol)acco out of his fees as chancellor 
toward making up the difference.^ Yet such an offer 
did not avail, for the lower house was at that time 
too strongly bent on extending the jurisdiction of the 
county courts ; and after tlie governor and council had 
established the circuits without the consent of the lower 
house, that body complaiiu'd that they were not conven- 

1 U. H. J., March 20 and .SI, 1707. 

2 L. II. J., March 26 to April 11, 1707. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 237 

ient to the country, that justice was not so well adminis- 
tered as it had been, and that they had been imposed 
upon the people without their consent. Therefore, con- 
tending that the justices should be paid by those who had 
set them at work, the lower house refused to make any 
allowance in the journal of accounts to pay them for 
their services.-^ Hence the circuit courts were abandoned 
until the year 1723. Long before that time, however, 
tlie jurisdiction of the county courts had been extended, 
while that of the provincial court had been restricted. All 
parties had therefore come to feel that, as tlie business of 
the latter court was increasing, it was highly desirable that 
four of its justices — two for each shore — should be chosen 
to hold circuits in the several counties. Accordingly, an 
act for that purpose was passed, but it provided that the 
county courts should not thereby be divested of any of 
their former jurisdiction. 

With respect to the jurisdiction of the several courts, 
the chief contention arose over the dividing line between 
that of the provincial court and that of the several county 
courts. There were three reasons why the lower house 
was so constantly striving for an extension of the jurisdic- 
tion of the county courts : first, the general desire of the 
people to extend their control in local matters ; second, 
the desire of the people to lessen the inconvenience and 
expense of obtaining justice ; third, by extending that 
jurisdiction the general control of the lower house in the 
department of justice would be increased, since so many 
of its members were justices in some county court. 

As already stated, when the organization of the county 
courts had reached its final form in the year 1661, their 
jurisdiction was limited to criminal cases not extending 
to life or member and to civil cases in which the value did 

iL. H. J., October 20, 1710. 



238 MAKYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

not exceed three thousand pounds of tobacco. In the 
year 1G78, at the request of the lower house, they were 
given jurisdiction over all cases of debt. But only two 
years later their jurisdiction in most civil cases was 
reduced to those in which the value involved did not 
exceed sixteen hundi'cd jiounds of tobacco. Although 
their jurisdiction in criminal matters always remained 
limited to cases not extending to life or member, — negro 
slaves excepted, — in 1G81 theft of what did not exceed 
one thousand })()unds of tobacco in value was- made pun- 
ishable by whip})ing or the pillory, instead of l>y the loss 
of members, and thereby such an offence was brought 
within the jurisdiction of the county courts. 

Two years after the establishment of the royal govern- 
ment the jurisdiction of those courts in civil cases was ex- 
tended to all such as did not exceed in value ten thousand 
pounds of tobacco or £50 sterling. In 1()1>7, and again in 
1706, requests from the lower house for a still further 
extension of that jurisdiction were refused. ^ But by 1708 
the distress of the poorer classes had become alarming ; 
and, accordingly, in that year, the lower house stated that 
the limited jurisdiction of the county courts was the cause 
of the many actions being brought in the provincial court 
which might have been heard and determined in the 
county courts much sooner and for one-half the cost. In 
view of such alleged conditions, the governor was asked to 
issue new commissions to the county courts in order to 
give them power to try all actions excej^t those for deter- 
mining title to land, and except criminal cases involving 
life or member;- and only a little later commissions were 
issued in which the jui'isdiction was extended to all civil 
cases in wliicli the value involved did not exceed thirty 
thousand [»oun(ls of tobacco or £100 sterling. 

1 L. II. J. Juiio 1, 1(;07 and April P.», 17(iO. 
- Jl>iil., Decembers, 1708. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 239 

But although the possible jurisdiction of the county 
courts was so much enlarged, there was as yet no restric- 
tion of that of the provincial court. The consequence was 
that the very next year, 1709, the lower house presented 
it as a grievance of the people that almost all actions were 
tried in the provincial court, that thereby it frequently 
happened that the cost of trying a small action was greater 
than the value in dispute, and that thereby the plaintiff 
often lost both his debt and costs, while the defendant 
suffered both long imprisonment and the ruin of his estate. ^ 
But the province was at this time without a governor, 
the authority of the president of the council was limited, 
and so, although the upper house conceded that the griev- 
ance was a real one, it did no more at this time than to 
recommend that application for its redress should be made 
to the next governor. The next governor, however, did 
not come until five years later, while during the interval 
the condition of the poor seems to have become more 
alarming. The consequence was that in 1710, without 
waiting longer for a new governor, the lower house asked 
for an act to limit the jurisdiction of the provincial 
court in original cases to those where the debt or dam- 
age was equal to or exceeded £30 sterling or seventy- 
five hundred pounds of tobacco. This time even the 
upper house felt the grievance to be so heavy that it was 
causing many people to leave the province ; but it objected 
to the bill on the ground that it would trench too much 
upon the royal prerogative. Such an object was incon- 
clusive to the lower house, and it at once resolved that 
it would proceed to no other business until the bill had 
been passed. ^ This resolution had the desired effect, 
for when the upper house had again considered the 

1 L. H. J., November 2, 1709. 

2 Ihid., October 27 to November 1, 1710. 



240 MAINLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

matter, that body, in its turn, uuaiiiinously resolved that, 
if the bill were not enacted into a law, the peace of the 
province might be greatly imperilled. It, however, 
amended the provisions of the bill so as to admit the 
jurisdiction of the provincial court in original cases 
where the debt or damage was not less than £20 ster- 
ling or five thousand, pounds of tobacco. The lower 
house reluctantly accepted the amendment, and the bill 
became a law.^ 

In 1714 merchants and lawyers, in numerous peti- 
tions against the act, complained of the great partiality 
shown in the county courts by the debtors' relatives and 
friends, also that attorneys practising in those courts could 
not be depended upon, and that judgments there were 
generally erroneous. They also stated that the act dis- 
couraged well-educated and competent attorneys from 
practising in the provincial court, and that merchants 
having money to collect had to employ twelve agents — 
one for each county — instead of only one as before. 
AVhile as to people leaving the province, the secretary — 
the fees of whose office the act had diminished — claimed 
that it was not the fees or costs of suits that obliged them 
to do so, but their debts. ^ The board of trade, however, 
offered no objections to the act, and it was continued for 
fifty-nine years, when it was displaced by one which fur- 
ther extended the jurisdiction of the county courts. From 
the year 1739 the lower house at nearly every session passed 
a bill for such further extension and, finally, in the year 
1773, the bill became a law and gave the county courts 
jurisdiction concurrent with that of the provincial court 
in all criminal cases, and exclusive jurisdiction in all civil 
cases in which they had formerly had only concurrent 

1 V. H. J., November 2 and 3, 1710. 

2 Ibid., June 29, 1714. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 241 

jurisdiction ; that is, exclusive jurisdiction in all cases in 
which the value involved did not exceed XI 00 sterling or 
thirty thousand pounds of tobacco. ^ 

The act of assembly passed in the year 1692 for the 
recovery of small debts was chiefly for the purpose of re- 
moving such cases from the jurisdiction of the provincial 
court. It provided for the recovery of debts, not exceed- 
ing the value of fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco, before 
a single justice of the provincial court or before any two 
justices of a county court. When the jurisdiction of the 
county courts had been extended in civil cases, and that of 
the provincial court restricted, two acts of assembly of 
the year 1715 made special provision for trying cases 
of debt. One of them directed that where the debt did 
not exceed four hundred pounds of tobacco or 33s. 4c?. 
sterling it should be recoverable before a single justice of 
the peace. The other directed that where the debt was 
more than four hundred but not more than one thousand 
pounds of tobacco, or more than 33s. 4d. sterling but not 
more than £50 sterling, it should be recoverable in the 
county courts. The same act also directed that if a plain- 
tiff brought suit in the county court for the recovery of a 
debt that was less than four hundred pounds of tobacco or 
less than 33s. 4r?. sterling, he should be non-suited ; and, 
furthermore, that if a plaintiff brought suit in the provin- 
cial court for the recovery of a debt that was less than 
fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco or less than £6 5s. 
sterling, he, too, should be non-suited. Finally, in the 
year 1732, the amount of the debt recoverable before a 
single justice was increased to six hundred pounds of 
tobacco or 50s. currency. 

^ In the year 1763 the county courts were g:iven jurisdiction concurrent 
with that of the court of chancery in all cases in which the value involved 
did not exceed five thousand pounds of tobacco or £20 sterling. 

R 



242 MAI;YLAND as a J'KOrUIETAllY rUOVINCE 

111 1715 the chancery court was, by act of assenibl\', 
excluded from jurisdiction in cases in which the original 
debt or damage did not amount to 1201 pounds of tobacco 
or <£5 1(7. sterling ; and in 17G-} the county courts were 
given jurisdiction concurrent with that of the chancery 
court in all cases in which the value involved did not 
exceed live thousand [jounds of tobacco or £20 sterling. 
In 1748 the committee on laws was ordered to make 
inquiry as to whether the people of Maryland were not 
of right entitled to have writs of replevin issue out of 
the county courts. That committee reported that by the 
custom in England the people of Maryland were so enti- 
tled, and for the next quarter of a century the lower 
house, at nearly every session, passed a bill for authorizing 
the county courts to issue those writs. ^ In 1769 the great 
objection of the other branches of the legislature to that 
bill a[)[)eared when the upper house so amended it that the 
fees of the chancellor should not be diminished in case the 
bill became a law ; and when the lower house pointed out 
that by the laws of Knghuid no such fee was reserved to 
the chancellor as the price of the ease and convenience of 
the subject, the upper lioust; replied that in I^ngland the 
support of the chancellor was not entirely dependent upon 
fees as was the case in Maryland.'-^ I low could such a 
rei)ly. have given any satisfaction w hen in Maryland the 
chancellor was the governor and from that office was 
receiving an annual income of £1400 collected by a law 
which the lower house was then contending was not in 
force? It is not strange, therefore, that in 1773, during 
the great controversy over fees, the opposition to the 
rc'iilevin bill gave way. .Vnd so another long standing 
contest ended in the triumph of the representativediouse. 

1 L. H. .1., May 26 and June 10, 1748. 

2 U. H. J., December 13 and 18, 1709. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 243 

A similar contest arose with respect to the jurisdiction 
of the deputy commissaries and tlie payment of fees for 
services performed by them. As early as the year 1681 
the judge of probate, or commissary general as he was 
usually called, was authorized by the lord proprietor to 
appoint a deput}^ in each county ; yet at the time of the 
Revolution of 1689 one of the charges against the pro- 
prietary government was that great trouble and expense 
was imposed upon the people in the remote parts of the 
province by being obliged to come to the central office for 
the probate of wills and the granting of letters of admin- 
istration. An act of assembly of 1692 did little more 
than to direct that the laws of the mother country relat- 
ing to this branch of justice should be applied in Mary- 
land. In the year 1715 an act of assembly directed that 
the deputy commissary in each county should prove wills 
and grant letters of administration in any case where there 
was no dispute. But any matter in dispute was to be 
decided by the commissary general alone, and in such 
cases the deputy commissary was not to proceed until he 
had received directions from his superior. Again, the 
deputy commissary was, by this act, to pass accounts 
relating to the estates of deceased persons, in which the 
value involved did not exceed £50 sterling, and about 
which there was no controversy.^ In practice the com- 
missary general did not pass many of the larger accounts, 
but issued a special commission to the deputy whenever 
tlie value exceeded £50 sterling. An objection to this 
was that when accounts were thus passed a double fee 
was charged, one-half of which went to the commissary 
general and the other half to the deput3\ The conse- 
quence was that by 1729 the practice was giving general 
dissatisfaction. In that year the lower house asked that 

' In 1763 this limit was extended to £150 currency. 



244 MARYLAND AS A PKOPKIETAKY PROVINCE 

the deputy commissaries slioiiM serve during good be- 
havior, and that their jurisdiction over the passing of 
accounts shouhl he greatl}^ enhirged.^ The latter request 
was supported on the ground that the restraint as imposed 
by the act of 1715 was of no advantage to any one except 
the commissary general, whose interest, it was held, ought 
not to stand in competition with that of the whole coun- 
try. The upper house, however, stood firm. The question 
was not one of fees merely. It was one of centralization 
vs. decentralization. After the act of 1747 for the 
inspection of tobacco and the regulation of officers' fees 
had been passed, the lower house contended that the oath 
prescribed therein forbade the charge of the double fee. 
But the oath was not taken. When the officers for whom 
the lower house claimed that the oath was intended had re- 
fused to take it, the govci-nor was asked to enforce that 
part of the law. But to this request the governor replied 
that the law was equivocal with regard to the oath, that 
the officers concerned were not appointed by him, and that 
the act imposed no penalty for not taking the oath. The 
lower house, by a vote of 34 to 15, then resolved to amend 
the law so as effectually to prevent the commissary gen- 
eral from receiving any fee when the service was per- 
formed by his deputy. But it was of no avail. The 
matter continued as a subject of bitter contention as long 
as the proi)rietary government endured. The commissary 
general, supported by the upper house, took the view that 
as the deputy commissaries were appointed for the con- 
venience of the people, it was fair to demand double fees 
when the service was performed by one of the deputies, 
whik' the lower house regarded it as absurd that a double 
fee should be paid for a single service. 

It does not appear that tliere was any restriction on 

1 L. H. J., July 2fi and 29, 1729. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 245 

appeals from the county courts to the provincial court 
until 1676, when an act of assembly was passed to insure 
payment of the cost of an appeal by requiring that no 
appeal should be allowed befoi-e the party applying there- 
fore had given bond for double the amount adjudged to 
be recovered from him by the first judgment. In 1692 a 
further step was taken when an act forbade an appeal to 
be made on any terms whatever from a county court to 
the provincial court if the amount of the judgment in the 
county court did not equal or exceed twelve hundred 
pounds of tobacco or £6 sterling. 

At the time the court of appeals was made distinct 
from the provincial court, the crown directed that an 
appeal should be allowed to the court of appeals only when 
the value in dispute exceeded £100 sterling, and then 
only after the proper security had been given. However, 
in 1699, in response to the desire of the lower house, the 
jurisdiction of that court was extended to all cases in 
which the value exceeded X50 sterling or ten thousand 
pounds of tobacco. 

By the commission of the first royal governor, appeal 
might be permitted to the king in council provided the 
value in dispute exceeded =£300 sterling, that the ap- 
peal was made within fourteen days after the last sen- 
tence given, and that security was given to answer the 
cost of the appeal, and provided execution was not sus- 
pended by reason of the appeal. And it does not appear 
that those provisions for such an appeal were changed 
before the Revolution of 1776. 

The time at which the county courts should sit was 
fixed by act of assembly. In the seventeenth century 
they usually sat six times a year. But for the greater 
part of the eighteenth they sat but four times a year, — 
in March, June, August, and November. Finally, in 



246 MARYLAND AS A PIIOPUIETAKV TKUVINCE 

1770, the June ses.sii)u wiis ubolished. The commissary 
general was required to hohl court once in two months, 
or oftener, if necessary. The sessions of the provincial 
court, the chancery court, and the court of appeals 
were less regular, but they usually sat several times a 
year. 

In botli the provincial court and the county courts 
there was a chief justice and at least four or live asso- 
ciate justices who were of the quorum. The presence 
of at least one of the quorum and of one other jus- 
tice was required for a session of the provincial court. 
While for a session of a county court the presence of at 
least one of the quorum and of two other justices was 
required. 

To both the provincial court and the county courts 
were issued the special commissions of oyer and terminer 
and of jail delivery. The sheiiff of each court sum- 
moned jurors and \\ itnesses and executed all the sen- 
tences of the court. He was given the power of the 
county ; that is, in case of resistance he could, if nec- 
essary, sununon any person or persons to his assistance. 
As soon as a session of court was o[)ened, the sheriff made 
return of a panel of grand jurors who were at once 
sworn l)y the court and then sent out to make intpiest. 
When the inquest liad been conq)leted, the court was pre- 
sented witli the grand jury's bill of indictment. Both in 
civil and criminal cases the trial might be by the court 
alone, or it might be tried before a jury. If both parties 
agreed to a jury trial, then the cost of the jury became a 
part of tlie costs of the snit. If both parties did not 
agree to a jur}- trial, then the one that demanded it had 
to pay tiie cost of it. However, in criminal cases ex- 
tending to life or member the defendant might demand 
a trial by jury without i)eing compelled to give security 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 247 

for the cost.^ In case the vote of the justices was equal, 
the casting vote of the chief justice was decisive. 

During the first half of the eighteenth century there 
were usually ten justices of the provincial court, but 
from 1760 there were only nine. In that year, also, the 
attorney general recommended that they be reduced to 
five. In the case of the county courts, previous to 
1730, there were seldom more than twelve and in some 
cases only eight justices. Hut from 1733 all the mem- 
bers of the council were phiced at the head of every 
commission for a county court. From 1738, also, the 
numl)er of justices for each county was otherwise increased 
until by 1773 there were sometimes twenty, and even as 
high as twenty-eight, besides those of the council. 

Justices of the provincial court, as well as justices of 
each county court, were commissioned by the governor in a 
body. All such commissions were renewed at irregular 

1 By a law of 1715 each sheriff was required to summon to the provin- 
cial court two grand jurors and three petit jurors, and likewise to sum- 
mon to the court of his county a " competent and sufificient number " of 
such jurors. A person summoned either as a juror or as a witness, and 
failing to appear, was subject to a fine of one thousand pounds of tobacco 
if the summons was to the provincial court, and live hundred pounds if to 
a county court. By the same law, a grand jury attending the provincial . 
court was paid three thousand pounds of tobacco, while one attending a 
county court was paid five hundred pounds ; a witness in the provincial 
court was paid forty pounds of tobacco a day, while a witness in the 
county court was paid thirty pounds a day. By a law of 1719 every petit 
jury — both in the provincial and in the county courts — was paid one 
hundred and twenty poimds of tobacco over and above fifteen pounds of 
tobacco a day to each juror serving in a county court, and thirty pounds 
a day for each juror serving in the provincial court. Finally, by a law of 
1760, the maximum pay to a grand jury was increased to six thousand 
pounds of tobacco, petit jurors attending the provincial court were paid 
forty-eight pounds of tobacco a day, over and above ninety-six pounds to 
every full jury passing a verdict, and itinerant charges of forty-eight 
pounds of tobacco a day were allowed every grand and petit juror attend- 
ing the provincial court. 



248 MARYLAND AS A rilOlMtlETAUV I'ltOVlNCE 

intervals. But it was not unusual for those to the county 
courts to be renewed once a year and even oftener, Avhile 
that to the provincial court was renewed less frequently. 
But usually the larger part of the old justices were re- 
appointed with each renewal of the commission; so that it 
was common for the same person to serve on the bench for 
many years. The appointment of justices during pleasure, 
instead of during good behavior, gave rise to occasional 
complaint.^ But, except in 1729, when the lower house 
passed a hill for ajjpointing deputy commissaries during 
good behavior, it was not until the closing 3'ears of the 
proprietary government that the same house ever passed 
a bill for securing the independence of justices. 

Previous to 1089 no other legislative provision was 
made for the payment of county justices than to allow 
each county court to levy either a limited or an unliniiU'd 
sum for defraying necessary expenses of the county. 
How much of the sum thus levied the justices reserved 
for their own pay, does not appear. Previous to 1G89, 
also, there was no legislative provision for paying, as such, 
the justices of the provincial court. But the first Assem- 
bly under the royal government passed an act to allow 
the justices of each county court to levy on their county 
sufficient to provide themselves payment to the amount of 
120 pounds of tobacco for each day's service in court. 
The same act also provided that each justice of the pro- 
vincial court, who heUl no other lucrative office under the 
government, should be allowed for his itinerant expenses 
and paid 180 pounds of tobacco for each day's service in 
that court. From not later than the year 1715 the legis- 
lature provided that each justice of a county court should 
be paid only eiglity pounds of tobacco for every day's ser- 
vice, while eacli justice of the provincial court should be 

1 L. II. J., May 30, 1739; Marylaiul Gazette, October 28, 1773. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 249 

paid 140 pounds of tobacco for every day's service, and 
also receive an allowance for his necessary itinerant 
charges. In 1728 the lower house voted that instead of 
paying county justices in the old way, suitors should pay 
them in fees for each particular service. ^ At the same 
time, also, the house voted in favor of reducing the pay 
of justices of the provincial court to 100 pounds of 
tobacco for a day's service. But on this, as on several 
other occasions, when the lower house proposed a general 
reduction of pay for all public service, the other house 
failed to agree to such propositions. In 1754, when a 
motion was made in the lower house to have the justices 
of both the provincial and the county courts paid in fees, 
it was voted down by a large majority. ^ 

Circuit court justices were paid seven thousand pounds 
of tobacco for each circuit. 

Until 1750 the members of the council seem to have 
received the same pay — 150 pounds of tobacco a day — 
when sitting as a court of appeals as when sitting as an 
upper house ; but from that year the lower house refused 
to pay the council when sitting as a court of appeals as 
well as when sitting as a council.^ 

The chancellor, the judge of probate and his deputies, 
the sheriffs, and the clerks were all paid in fees charged 
for each particular service, and to what extent the amount 
of those fees was determined by the Assembly has already 
been shown. ^ 

Insufficient pay of justices was most felt in the case of 
those of the provincial court, and especially in the case 
of the chief justice of that body. As early as 1701-02, 
when Thomas Smithson was both chief justice of the 
provincial court and speaker of tlie lower house, the gov- 

1 L. H. J., October 14, 1728. 2 75^^.^ May 25, 1754. 

3 Ibid., May 30, 1750 ; June 9, 1752. * Supra, p. 191. 



250 MAUVLAND AS A rUOriUi:TAHY PROVINCE 

ernor and council stated that the chief justice had fre- 
quently expressed a desire to resign, but that tliey had 
resolved to encourage him to continue by allowing him 
£50 per annum out of the fifty thousand pounds of tobacco, 
which they were empowered to levy for defi-aying the 
small charges of the province.^ It was, therefore, recom- 
mended to the lower house that the Assembly give him a 
suitable reward for his services. Although that house 
resolved itself into a committee of the whole to consider 
the recommendation, it resolved not to provide for the 
proposed salary. For, Avhile admitting that Smitlison was 
Avell (lualifu'd as a eliief justice, the lower house claimed 
that no })r()vince had chjne more than to defray the charges 
of any justice ; and as it held that such salaries had 
always been defrayed out of his Majesty's revenue, it 
resolved that it would not be justified in burdening the 
country with the proposed salary. 

Nothing was again heard about the matter until the 
year 178G. The ollice of chief justice was at that time 
held by Levin Gale, one of the four members wlio, two 
years before, had been expelled from the lower house for 
accepting oflice. I>ut his count}' of Somerset had again 
returned him, and he was second only to Dulany on the 
committee on laws. Mis vote on several (juestions shows 
that he was a supporter of the government and not of the 
opposition, and it may be that it was a design of tlie 
op[)osition to win him over to its side when the lower 
house acknowledged his merit and ability as chief justice, 
and voted to allow him £100 in the public levy.^ 

But the very next year when the lower house voted to 
allow him only £50, on the ground that the allowance of 
the previous year had been intended for all his preceding 
services, the up[>er house dechired tliat the sum was be- 

1 U. II. J.. March 20, 1701-02. » j^. n. j.^ April iWainl May 1, 1730. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 251 

neath the dignity of the Assembly to offer, and of the 
chief justice to accept. After several messages had fol- 
lowed, the lower house, holding that it was their duty to 
refrain from squandering the property of their constitu- 
ents, voted to strike out the entire allowance from the 
journal of accounts ; and although the upper house would 
not then pass tlie journal, it does not appear that any such 
allowance was ever again made.^ 

The natural result of the lack of salary for either chief 
justice or associate justices was that the supreme court 
of the province became one of the weakest points in the 
entire system of government. The chief justice might be 
rewarded by giving him a seat in tlie council, and some 
of those lucrative offices that the councillor always en- 
joyed. However, that officer was not always a councillor ; 
and the objection to having many of the council as jus- 
tices of the provincial court has already been noticed. ^ 
Consequently, during the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, it being so difficult to get men of good capacity to 
take a seat in that court, two or more of those justices 
were, at the time, clerks of a county court. 

But the attitude of that body in the year 1759, during 
the trial of a case in which the proprietor's right to 
escheated land was'at stake, had the effect of causing that 
court to be made much stronger. For after the trial was 
over Stephen Bordley, the attorney general, gave an 
account of it, first, to Secretary Calvert, and, later, to 
Governor Sharpe. In his account to Sharpe he objected 
to three of tlie justices because they were county clerks, 
to two of them because they were members of the council, 
and to two others because they were extremely weak. 
So there were only two out of nine against whom he 
offered no objections.^ 

1 L. II. J., May 26, 27, 28, 1737. 2 ,sVj^r« p. 2;)4. 3 Portfolio 4, No. 53. 



252 MARYLAND AS A IMK )I'i:i lOTAlt V PUOVINCK 

Very soon tlic Ini'd propi-ielor, the secretary, the gov- 
ernor, the attorney general, and even the lower iiouse 
were all interested in reforming the provincial court. 
Secretary Calvert even confessed that those justices ought 
to hold no other offices, ought to be appointed for life, and 
removed only for cause, and ought to be men of stability, 
sound judgment, honor, and good erudition.^ In order to 
induce men of such desirable qualities to serve, he thought 
the legislature ought to unite with the lord proprietor in 
providing better pay. In 170") the loi'd proprietor offered 
to allow the appropriation of the income from liis disputed 
right to ordinary licenses toward paying those justices, if 
the Assembly would pass an act "for the better establish- 
ing and securing the independence of the judges, and for 
rendering the office worthy the acceptance of men of the 
greatest integrity and ability in the province."^ 

It was doubtless in response to such an offer that three 
years later — after the Stamp Act controversy was over — 
the lo\ver house appointed fifteen of its strongest members 
to serve on a committee to make an estimate of the sala- 
ries of three judges of the provincial court, and also to 
consider ways and means to pay them. In its report that 
committee recommended a salary to the chief justice of 
.£666 13s. 4(7., and to two associate justices a salary of 
.£400 each. The report provided for the pa3ment of the 
same by the levy of a tax of £800 on ordinaries, of £80 
on hawkers and pedlers, of ,£480 on carriage wheels, and 
of <£120 on judgments rendered.^ The house concurred 
in the report of its committee ; and a bill embodying its 
recommendations passed the first reading. But the bill 
was then referred to the next Assembly, and the pressing 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 134. 

2 Ibid., p. 195. 

8 L. H. J., May 30 to June 1, I7(i8. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 253 

questions which by that time had arisen seem to have left 
little time for its further consideration. 

But although that bill never became a law, and although 
those justices continued to the end without a salary, yet 
the strong executive ability of Governor Sharpe had been 
called into action. In 1766 he issued a new commission 
for that court in which five of the former justices were 
replaced by others. Of those five, Henry Hooper, chief 
justice, was a man well advanced in years, who had some- 
time before been both a justice of that court and a speaker 
of the lower house ; James Weems had been chief justice 
of Calvert County ; Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer later 
became the lord proprietor's agent and receiver general ; 
and the other two — John Beals Bordley and John Leeds 
— were of well-recognized ability. After the new com- 
mission had been issued, Sharpe wrote to the lord proprie- 
tor as follows concerning the justices of that court : 
" They are all, in my opinion, gentlemen of integrity and 
well attached to your Lordship's government, and as well 
qualified as any I know to administer justice unless some 
gentlemen of the law could be prevailed upon to relin- 
quish their practice and sit on the bench, which can never 
be expected while the allowance made the provincial jus- 
tices for their attendance is little more than sufficient to 
defray their expenses."^ 

Little complaint was ever raised about the want of abil- 
ity and integrity in the justices of the several county courts. 
Although those justices received but very small pay, yet 
the greatest days in the year — the days of the largest 
gatherings of the people — were those on which the county 
court sat, and the honor of the occasion seems to have 
been sufficient to induce many of the ablest men of the 
county to accept appointment as justices. As already 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. P/PA. 



254 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

stated, many of the members of the lower liouse sat on the 
bench in those courts. 

The most objectionable features, then, of the whole 
judicial system were these, that the justices of the provin- 
cial court were so poorly paid ; that judges were appointed 
only during the pleasure of the lord proprietor ; and that 
under the fee system in the chancery and the probate 
courts, suitors too often had to make an expensive journey 
to the city of Anna[)olis, or else pay double fees in order 
to have matters attended to within the county. 

It was not until 16(32 that legislative provision was 
made for a prison even at St. Mary's ; but before (iov- 
ernor Charles Calvert had succeeded his father as lord 
proj)rietor, the (General As8enil)ly had directed the justices 
of each county to provide their county with a pi'isou, a 
pillory, stocks, a whipping, post, and a burning iron. 
Although there was much uncertainty as to 'ii^hat penal 
statutes were in force in the province, nevertheless, dur- 
ing the low industrial conditions of the first third of the 
eighteenth century, there was a frequent use of the pillory, 
the stocks, the whipping post, and the burning iron. 
Even in the more prosperous times that followed many a 
poor woman who had borne a bastard child and could not 
pay the fine of thirty shillings was tied to the whipping 
post, and given ten or twelve lashes on her bare Ihick ; ^ a 
man found guilty of blasphemy had his tongue bored 
through; those found guilty of manslaughter, of felony, 
and, in some cases of theft, were burned in the hand ; a 
negro woman found guilty of perjury had both her ears 
cut ofif ; one who had stolen a grindstone was stood in the 
pillory, and afterward tied to the wl4ipping post and given 
thirty lashes ; and a shoplifter was twice whipped and 

1 In the year 1740 coqioral punishment for this offence was abolished. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 255 

twice stood in the pillory. Such are the examples of 
punishment actually inflicted after the year 1745. 

The prisons also had many inmates, and their condition, 
although perhaps no worse than in the other colonies, is 
somewhat shocking to the more humane sentiments of the 
closing years of the nineteenth century. Although the 
lord proprietor, while visiting the province in 1732 and 
1733, had but little to say to the Assembly, he did mention 
to that body his concern about the bad state of the prisons.^ 
That there was cause for such concern is made quite clear 
by the report of a committee of the lower house submitted 
three years later, with respect to the prison at Annapolis. 
Thus, in part, the report reads : " It is a very inconven- 
ient building, there being but two rooms in it, one on the 
ground floor and tlie other above. So there are no sepa- 
rate apartments for men and women. Such debtors as 
have the misfortune to be in prison, and who are kept 
genei'ally in the upper room, are almost perished with cold 
in the winter, and in danger of being destroyed by stench 
whicli in the summer time comes from the lower room 
where the criminals are confined. 

" Your committee have likewise been informed that sev- 
eral unfortunate persons who have been confined for debt 
in the said prison have actually died, some in the prison 
and others soon after their enlargement, and that many 
who have escaped with their lives have contracted such 
distempers during their confinement as have greatly im- 
paired their constitution and rendered their lives very 
miserable. So that it may be truly said that the gaol at 
Annapolis besides being a place of restraint and confine- 
ment has also been a place of death and torments to many 
unfortunate people." ^ 

1 L. H. J., March 13, 1732. 

2 Ibid., April 1, 1736. 



26G ]SIAKVLANI> AS A PIlOPHIiyrAlIY IMIOVINCE 

Again, as late as 1769, the lower liouse represented to 
the governor to what a great extent prisoners were sub- 
ject to the power of the sheriff, how some unfortunate 
people were reduced to the "anguish of a jail, and exposed 
to all the miseries of cold and wet, in the most inclement 
seasons of the year," and, in particular, how, by the order 
of a certain sheriff, a prisoner had been illegally, cruelly, 
and ignominiously scourged by the hand of a slave." ^ At 
the same time, the prisons were so insecure that it was a 
common occurrence for those deserving punishment to 
make their escape. 

Nevertheless, from the year 1732, the General Assembly 
was by no means indifferent as to the condition of the 
prisons. In the act of that year for issuing .£90,000 in 
paper currency, £500 for each county were appropriated 
for the building of county jails. The committee tliat 
reported the condition of the prison at Anna})olis recom- 
miMided the erection, as a prison, of a two-story brick 
building, sixty feet by twenty feet, with several windows, 
separate ajjartments, a fireplace in each, and a dungeon 
under the first story in which to confine malefactors. 
The governor was asked to remove the sheriff who had so 
maltreated the prisoner referred to above. Again, in the 
year 17o2— 33 the Assembly passed an act by which a pris- 
oner for debt might gain his liberty in response to his 
petition to the Assembly and on condition that he deliv- 
ered up on oath whatever property he had that was of the 
value of forty shillings or more. The number of petitions 
received by the Assembly, in accordance with this law, in- 
creased from year to year until, during the closing j-ears 
of the proprietary government, from fifty to more than 
one hundred such prisoners were restored to liberty at 
every session of assembly. 

1 L. n. J.. December 18, 17(59. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 257 

No other controversy between the lord proprietor and 
the representatives of the people had a more important 
-bearing on the development of the Maryland charter than 
did that over the laws according to which justice — 
especially in criminal cases — should be administered by 
the justices in the several courts. In the controversy over 
fees was involved the claim of the people as English sub- 
jects to a control over taxatioii. But in the controversy 
over the laws according to which justice should be admin- 
istered, it was felt by the people that there was involved 
the right of the people as English subjects to inherit the 
liberty which had been or was yet to be secured by the 
whole body of common and statute law of the mother 
country. 

During the first thirty years after the grant of the 
charter the tendency was more and more toward provid- 
ing the province with a criminal code independent of the 
mother country, toward introducing only such English 
statutes and usages as all parts of the legislature could 
agree upon, and toward giving the judges unlimited discre- 
tion in all cases in which the laws of the province gave 
no direction. It was, however, the Assembly which had 
been elected during the Claiborne and Ingle rebellion, — 
known as the Hill Assembly, — but continued by Gov- 
ernor Calvert, that passed the act, in the year 1646-47, 
which tended most emphatically in the direction just 
indicated. The freemen of the next Assembly unani- 
mously protested against the validity of that act on the 
ground that the body passing it had not been lawfully 
constituted. In addition to such an act, passed under 
such conditions, there was yet wanting only such govern- 
ment as was administered by the first Charles Calvert 
to teach the people to value more highly their English 
birthright, and so to open an agitation which had as 



258 MAUVLAND AS A rUOl'lMETAUY I'UOVINCE 

its ol)ject the extension of tlie whole body of Englisli 
common and statute law to the province of Maryland. 

In the second Assendjly, — the lirst one of which any 
rect)rds are left, — it was agreed that the governor's com- 
mission gave him i)ower as chief justice to proceed in all 
civil cases and in all criminal cases, not extending to life 
or member, according to the laws of England : but that 
in criminal cases extending to life or member, he had no 
such power. 1 

In tlie third Assembly, — the first one that passed any 
acts that became laws, — bills were introduced which de- 
lined treason, felonies, and other great offences, and named 
the penalty for both treason and felony. But, like sev- 
eral other bills of that session, although they passed the 
second reading, for some reason which does not api)ear 
they failed to become laws. In their stead an act was 
passed which merely ])rovided that in civil cases the 
chief justice and his associates should cause right and 
justice to be done according to the laws or laudable usage 
in England in the same or like cases ; while in criminal 
■^ cases those justices were authorized to punish any offender 
„.. as they thought he deserved. 

One act of 1()42 directed that in civil cases, for which 
no law or usage of the province provided, justice should 
be administered according to ecjuity and good conscience, 
"not neglecting the I'ules by wiiii-h rigiit and justice used 
and ought to be determined in England in the same or the 
like cases." With respect to criminal cases, the same act 
directed that, in default of the laws of the province, all 
crimes and offences should be determined according to the 
best discretion of the court, provided that no person should 
be adjudged of life, member, or freehold, or to be outlawed 
or exiled or lined al)Ove one thousand {xmnds of tobacco 

^ Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, IGoT-oS to 1664, p. 9. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 259 

"without law certain of tlie province." Another act of 
tlie same year introduced into the province the law of 
Edward III with respect to treason, as well as the 
law of Enghind for punishing any one convicted of 
wilful murder, and then declared that conspiring the 
death of the lord proprietor or the governor or attempt- 
ing any premeditated violence against either of them, or 
being accessory to the same, should be punished by death 
and forfeiture of all the offender's lands, goods, and 
chattels. 

Still other acts of that year provided that such oiTences 
as homicide, piracy, robbery, burglary, sacrilege, sodom}-, 
sorcery, rape, and larceny should be determined by the 
judge as near as miglit be according to the laws of Eng- 
land. Any one found guilty of such offence might be 
sentenced to death, to burning in the hand, to loss of 
member, to loss of property, to be outlawed or exiled, or 
to be imprisoned for life. Any one guilty of striking an 
officer, juror, or witness in the presence of the court, or 
any one found guilty of perjury might be deprived of his 
right hand, be burned in the hand, be made to suffer any 
corporal punishment (not extending to life), or be fined 
as the court should think fit. Any one convicted of being 
drunk was to be fined one hundred pounds of tobacco, or, 
if a servant who could not pay the fine, he might be im- 
prisoned or set in the stocks. Finally, any one convicted 
of profane cursing or swearing was to forfeit five pounds 
of tobacco. All these acts of 1642 were passed twice that 
year, and the last time their duration was limited to three 
years. 

The first Assembly that met after their expiration was 
the Hill Assembly already referred to, and tlie only act 
on record that was passed by it was one concerning judi- 
cature, which was as follows : "All justice, as well civil 



260 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

as criminal, sliall be administered by the governor or 
other chief judi,^' in court according to the hiws of the 
province, and in defect of hiw, then according to the sound 
discretion of the said governor or other Chief Judge and 
such of the council as shall be present in court or the 
major part of them. And if the vote of the Council differ 
equally, the vote of the Governor or other Chief Judge in 
court shall cast it." Observe that the duration of this 
act was not limited ; and although the contents themselves 
became very objectionable before 1689, yet during the few 
years immediately following its passage it would appear 
that the protest raised against its validity originated, not 
so much because of those contents as because of the far- 
reaching power claimed by the governor to dctei'mine 
what should constitute a lawful assembly. ^ 

The Assembly, only two years later, without any ai)[)ar- 
ent effort to secure to the people their i-ight to English 
law, again took such action in criminal matters as the 
lord proprietor desired. It passed an act of unlimited 
duration, which provided that such offenders as should 
be convicted of making mutinous or seditious speeches 
tending to divert the obedience of the people from the 
lord proprietor or the governor should be liable to one or 
more of the following punishments : imprisonment during 
pleasure (not exceeding one year), line, banishment, bore- 
ing of the tongue, slitting of the nose, cutting of one or 
both ears, whipping, or branding with a red-hot iron in 
the hand or forehead. One year later, also, acts of unlim- 
ited duration [)rovided that such as should be found guilty 
of adultery or fornication shoiiM be punished as the jus- 
tices saw fit, except that for such ollences no one was to 
be dei)rived of life or member ; they fixed the fine that 
should be imposed for drunkenness and swearing ; and 

^ Siijinr, p. 100. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 261 

they directed that any one guilty of perjury, of striking 
an officer in the discharge of his official duties, or of strik- 
ing an officer, a juror, or a witness in the presence of the 
court, should be nailed to the pillory, deprived of both 
ears, or made to suffer such other corporal punishment as 
the justices should see fit. 

At the close of the year 1650, then, it appears that the 
laws of the province which directed the judges in criminal 
cases were principally those relating to mutiny, sedition, 
adultery, fornication, drunkenness, swearing, perjury, and 
forcible interference with officials while in the discharge of 
their duties. In other cases, one other law authorized the 
judges to act according to their "sound discretion." 

Nearly the same condition existed twelve years later, 
when, during the first session of assembly under Charles 
Calvert, the lower house passed a bill in which — after it 
was stated that the allowance of great discretion to the 
judges had left too much room for corruption — it was 
provided that in all cases where the laws of the province 
were silent justice should be administered according to 
the laws and statutes of England if pleaded and produced. 
The upper house objected to the bill on the ground that 
county courts would not know when a law of England 
was rightly pleaded, and asked if all hiAvs, however incon- 
sistent they might be, were to be admitted into the prov- 
ince.^ However, after the bill had been so amended as to 
leave each court to judge as to the right pleading and the 
consistency that might come into question, the bill became 
a law and was continued in force until 1674. 

But in that year the upper house asked for a conference 
to draw up a list of such laws of England as should be 
deemed necessary to direct the judges of the provincial 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1604, pp. 
435, 436, 448, 504. 



262 MAKVLANI) AS A 1M:< )|'i; I KTA i: V I'UOVINCE 

court in criininul cases. Tlie conference being" agreed to, 
four nieuil)(;rs of tlie u})per house met with six of the lower 
house. Yet, after tlie upper liouse had passed the bill 
embodying such a list, the lower house voted that it was 
unnecessary to consider it, since they conceived the laws 
of England ought to be esteemed and judged in full force 
and power in Maryland ; and it availed nothing for the 
upper house to contend that as some of the laws of Eng- 
land would be inconvenient and that others of them were 
often repealed without the knowledge of the Maryland 
courts, dangerous consequences would necessarily follow 
from admitting that all the laws of England were in force 
in the trial of criminal cases. Tlie lower liouse was not 
troubled by such argument, and after they had been tohl 
that the law of 1(3G2 for the administration of justice 
according to the laws .of England had to do with civil 
cases only, they asked to have it extended to criminal 
cases as well. Instead of making any such amendment, 
however, the law of 16G2 was suffered to expire, and 
the status of 1G50 was again restored.^ 

Nothing further was done with respect to the matter 
until seven years later, when a law was made for the trial 
of criminals which favored the view held by the up[)er 
house with respect to the inconvenience of the laws of 
England, l)ut which must have met the ap[)r()val of the 
lower house because it extended the jurisdiction of the 
county courts. The preamble first stated that, although 
the laws of England against thieving, stealing, and 
purloining were very suital)le to })()[)ulous countries, 
they were not so for a thinly inhabited j)rovince. It 
■ was there stated how, by following the laws of England, 
all or nearly all crimes above petty larceny were punisli- 

1 Proccedin.iis and Acts of the General Assembly, KiGO to 1670, pp. 
347, 348, 349, 374 et scq. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 263 

able by loss of member, burning in the hand or forehead, 
by cropping of the ears, or even by death, and, there- 
fore, could be tried only at St. Mary's in the provincial 
court. Lastly, it was pointed out how under such 
conditions the remoteness of many of the people from 
that court caused trials for small offences to become so 
tedious and expensive that prosecution was often forborne 
to the great encouragement of malefactors. Consequently, 
the law provided that tlie county courts should have juris- 
diction over such criminal offences as thieving or stealing, 
where the value exceeded not one thousand pounds of 
tobacco. Those convicted of such offences were to be 
punished by whi})ping, or standing in the pillory, or both, 
and made to restore fourfold to the owner. But in case 
of a third offence of the same kind by the same party 
the provincial court alone was to have jurisdiction over 
it. 

Although, in order thus to extend the jurisdiction of 
the county courts and to discourage stealing, English law 
was departed from, it became clear, three years hxter, in 
168-1:, that the lower house was in no way disposed to 
make any concession of its former claim, in behalf of the 
people, to their right to the English laws. For, in that 
year, that house strove to have the perpetual law of 
1646-47 so amended as to include the essential provision 
of the act of 1662 with respect to proceeding under certain 
conditions according to the laws of England. But while 
the bill for thus amending that law was before the upper 
house, the lord proprietor spoke to that body as follows : 
" It is not safe to have justice administered according to the 
laws of England, where the laws of this province are 
silent, without due regard had by the Governor, or Chief 
Judge and the Justices in court to the consistency of such 
laws of England to the constitution and present condition 



264 MARYLAND AS A ritOPRIETAUV PROVINCE 

of this assembly, it seeming to me unreasonable that since 
his Majesty of ever blessed memor}' out of the fulness of 
his royal power was graciously pleased to permit me with 
the consent of llic freciuen to make such wholesome laws 
as should be consonant to reason and not repugnant to the 
laws of England, I should by an act oblige and tie up the 
freemen of this province to be concluded by such laws of 
England as may ruin them, or at least be greatly injuri- 
ous in several respects to them. I am therefore willing 
to admit this alteration, that where tlie laws of this prov- 
ince are silent, justice may be administered according to 
the laws of England, if the Governor or Chief Judge and 
the justices of my court shall (ind such laws consistent 
with the condition of the i)rovince. To a liill with this 
alteration I will set my hand, but not otherwise."'^ Alter 
listening to such words tlie upjjcr house had sulhcient 
excuse for rejecting the amendment ; and the lower house 
at that time did not see tit to enter into any controversy 
with the lord proprietor about it. 

The matter was before the Assembly but once more 
before the Revolution came, and then only incidentally, in 
the year 1G88. But it was at that time introduced in the 
form of a resolution of the lower house — a manner of 
expression that was yet rare with that body, but one 
which after the first quarter of the following century 
became so formidable. The resolution was, "That this 
house do in the name of the whole province which we 
represent demand the benefit of the laws of England and 
of this Province as our inherent and just right, which we 
have hitherto been deiirivcd of in not having the last 
writs of election and journals returned as desired by this 
house." 2 

^ Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1G84 to 1G92, p. 38 
et seq. ^ J bid., p. 1(32. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 265 

With the establishment (3f the royal government it was 
inserted in commissions to the justices that justice should 
be administered according to the laws of England and of 
the province. The act of 1646—1:7, which allowed so 
much discretion to the judges, ceased to be in force. In 
its place was passed an act — similar to that of 1662, but 
less conditional — which directed that where the laws of 
the province were silent justice should be administered 
according to the laws of England. 

But still this did not serve as a final settlement of the 
question. In 1696, when the lower house insisted on 
having a clause introduced into a bill for the establish- 
ment of religious worship which was worded so as to 
imply that all the laws of England extended to the 
province, the upper house would not pass it until some 
lawyers had given it as their opinion that the clause would 
not be of much force. Even then the crown disallowed it 
for the reason that the clause in question was of a differ- 
ent nature from that which was set forth in the title of 
the said bill.^ 

During the whole of the royal period, however, it was 
not denied that in general the laws of England did extend 
to the province. Neither was it denied during that period 
that there were among those laws some which did not 
extend thither. The difficulty lay in separating the one 
class from the other ; and it is clear that the lower house 
felt that no agreement could be reached whereby the right 
of the people would not be encroached upon. Otherwise 
the matter would doubtless have been settled ; for the low 
moral condition prevailing during the early years of the 
eighteenth century gave rise to a general desire for a clear 
understanding as to what laws were to be enforced. Thus, 
in 1706, the upper house claimed that judges were uncer- 

lU. H. J., December 30, 1699. 



260 MARYLAND AS A PnOPItlKTA i;V I'KOVINCE 

tain as to whether the hiws of Enghmd against bigamy 
extended to Maryhmd. Tlierefore tliat lioiise desired the 
Assembly either to declare that those laws did extend to 
the province, or else pass some act against such an ofrt'iicf.^ 
Again, in 1712, the committee on grievances represented 
that, because no act of assembly declared what English 
statutes were in foree in Maryland, it was left to the dis- 
cretion of the judges to admit or to reject them ; that 
under such conditions an act of parliament was recognized 
in one court but not in another ; and that consequently 
the people knew not what acts of parliament they trans- 
gressed or what were for their relief.^ 

In response to such complaints, the lower house, in 1706, 
resolved that when offences were not provided against by 
acts of the Maryland Assembly, a bill should be brought 
in declaring that acts of parliament had been and were 
still in force in [Maryland. The house then ordered the 
chief justice of the provincial court, who was at tliat time 
chairman of the committee on laws in their house, to pre- 
pare a list of those laws of England that were to be con- 
sidered in force in Mar^dancL After the chief justice had 
submitted his list and the house had pronounced it incom- 
plete, that body appointed two others of its members to 
amend it. Perhaps such a list — made to meet the ap- 
proval not of the other branches of the legislature but of 
the lower house alone — was intended as a sufficient guide 
to the judges. 

At any rate, this was as far as the lower house seemed 
very anxious to go. For although, in 1712, that house 
resolved that it was highly necessary to pass an act for 
declaring what laws of England were in force in Mary- 
land, the matter was referred to the next Assembly."^ 

1 U. II. J., April 12, 1700. 2 l. II. J., November G, 1712. 

8 Ihid. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 267 

Again, two years later, when, at the suggestion of the 
new governor, the upper house proposed that the Assem- 
bly should request some of the queen's council and others 
most eminent in the law to give their opinion as to what 
laws of England extended to Maryland, tlie lower house 
declined to join in such a request, saying that a matter 
of so great importance needed mature consideration, and 
hence ought to be referred to the next Assembly.^ There 
the matter rested until seven years after the restoration 
of the proprietary government. 

It was then a period of calm followed by a decade of 
intense agitation. In 1722 the young lord proprietor 
decided that no laws of England extended to Maryland 
except those in which, by express words, the dominions 
were mentioned. In that year, therefore, he vetoed an 
act of assembly which he thought seemed by implication 
to introduce all the English statutes into his province. 
At the same time he declared tliat whenever an English 
statute was found to be convenient and well suited to the 
conditions in the province, it could be introduced onl}^ by 
act of assembly. In other words, the people of Mary- 
land were not to enjoy the benefit of English statutes in 
general without the lord proprietor's consent. ^ 

Although the lord proprietor afterward stated that the 
most commonly received opinions of the best lawyers in 
England sustained him in his view of this matter, and 
although he was likewise sustained by the usage in other 
English colonies, later events showed that previous prac- 
tice and disputation in Maryland had made it inexpedient 
for him to act in accord therewith. Without some express 
provision to the contrary, it was natural for the people of 
a province to claim that, if they were a free people, they 

1 U. H. J., June 28, 20, and July 1, 1714. 
2U. H. J., March 19, 1722. 



268 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETAKY IMtOVINCE 

were entitled to the laws of tlieir mother country. The 
l)e()ple of Maryland were becoming exceedingly jealous of 
the lord proprietor's powers, and they felt that the inter- 
pretation of the charter, with respect to his powers and 
their rights, very largely depended on the settlement of 
this question. Previous to 1089 it had been the practice, 
in many cases, to administer justice according to the laws 
of England; and ever since 1692 the commissions to the 
justices had directed them to act according to the laws 
of England and of Ahiryland. Therefore, in view of 
these facts, after the people had so much strengthened 
their power in government during the twenty-three years 
of the royal period, it was unwise for this young lord 
proprietor to take a position on a vital question that 
was more far-reaching in its consequences than that 
taken on the same question by his predecessor in the year 
1684. 

The lower house was at once thoroughly aroused. 
The members of that body held that not to acknowledge 
the right of the people to those laws was to liken them 
to a conquered people such as were the inhabitants of 
Jamaica. In their intercourse by messages with the upper 
house, they were charged with casting invidious reflections, 
and of accusing that house of taking such a course as 
tended to the subversion of the constitution. In an ad- 
dress to the lord proprietor, this representative body said: 
'• If the English statutes do not extend to the plantations 
unless l)y express words thither, then the (Jreat Charter and 
all the statutes to the grant of your Lordship's charter are 
struck off at once from our rule of privileges ; for they 
could not by express words be located hither since they 
were made long before Maryland Avas known or thought 
of. . . . Hut they do and ever did extend to Mary- 
land. How could the people of Maryland enjoy the 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 269 

privileges of Englishmen if they did not enjoy the 
English laws ? " ^ 

Furthermore, that house made its committee on griev- 
ances also a committee on courts of justice, and instructed 
it to watch the form of commissions and oaths of judges 
— especially those commissions which required justice 
to be administered according to the laws of England. 
From this time also, until the overthrow of the proprietary 
government, there were among the standing resolutions of 
the lower house the following : — 

" Resolved that this province is not under the circum- 
stances of a conquered country, that if it were the present 
Christian inhabitants thereof would be in the circumstances 
not of the conquered but of the conquerors. It being a 
colony of the English nation encouraged by the Crown to 
transplant themselves hither for the sake of enlarging and 
improving its dominions which, by the blessings of God 
on their endeavors at their own expense and labor, has 
been in great measure obtained. And it is unanimously 
resolved that whoever shall advance that his Majesty's 
subjects by such their endeavors and success have for- 
feited any part of their English liberties are ill wishers to 
the country and mistake its happy constitution." 

" Resolved further tliat this province hath always 
hitherto had the common law and such general statutes of 
England as are not restrained by words of local limitation 
in them and such acts of assembly as were made in the 
province to suit its particular constitution as the rule and 
standard of government and judicature, such statutes and 
acts of assembly being subject to like rules of common 
law or equitable construction as are used by the judges in 
construing statutes in England, which happy rules have 
by his Majesty and his royal ancestors and by his Lord- 

iL. II. J., October 21, 1723. 



270 MARYLAND AS A rilorMIETAIlV I'llOVIN'CE 

ship iiiid liis noble ancestors or some of them, been 
hitherto approved by the commissions of judicature to 
include directions of that nature to the several judicial 
magistrates unless those words have at any time been 
carelessly and casually omitted by the oflicers of this 
province that draw such commissions, that therefore who- 
ever shall advise him or his successors to govern by any 
other rules of government are evil counsellors, ill wishers 
to his Lordship, to the present happy constitution, and 
intend thereby to infringe our English liberties, and to 
frustrate in great measure the intent of the Crown by the 
original grant of this province to the Lord Proprietor. " ^ 

Up to this time the form of the judge's oath had been 
prescribed by the governor and council. But in 1724 the 
committee on grievances and courts of justice reported 
that by the form of oath then in use, judges were made to 
swear that they would do " equal right to the poor as well 
as to the rich, according to their cunning, skill, and knowl- 
edge, and according to the precedents and customs of the 
province and acts of assembly." As such an oath was not 
in accord with the commissions of the same judges, nor with 
the recent resolutions of the lower house, that branch of the 
legislature sought to have the form of oath [)rcscribed I)}- 
an act of assembly, and thereby to bring ab(»ut a more 
positive and definite determination of the question relat- 
ing to the extension of the English statutes to Maryland. 

Accordingly, at the request of the lower house, Daniel 
Dulany, the attorney general and also a meml)er of the 
lower house, drew up the form of an oath by which judges 
were to swear that they would do equal right to the poor 
as well as to the rich, " According to tlie laws, statutes, 
and reasonable customs of England and the acts of as- 
sembly and usage of this province of ]\Iar3^1and.'"'^ When 

1 L. II. J., Octuber 22, 1722. 2 7/,/,;.^ October IG, 1724. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 271 

this had been laid before tlie upper house, that body 
claimed that by such an oath the judges would be bound 
to administer justice according to the laws of England, 
even in those cases in which such a course would cause 
" ruin to the good people " of the province. Therefore, 
they desired that the clause quoted above should be left 
out until the lord proprietor should have advised the 
governor and council as to whether it was consistent with 
the charter and agreeable to the constitution and general 
welfare of the province.^ 

But the lower house contended that the clause in ques- 
tion was in strict accord with the judges' commissions, 
which it but helped to explain. It held that with respect 
to this matter it was the duty of the council and the 
Assembly to give advice to the lord proprietor, and that 
until he had received such advice it was impracticable for 
him, a stranger at so great a distance, to give any advice 
to the governor and council. Then, in the conclusion of 
the same message, the lower house showed its independent 
spirit in the following words : " We shall never prosti- 
tute plain dealing to the servile force of compliment when 
our Country's good, your Honors, and our duty requires 
plainness. We shall rather choose to bear your censure 
if we incur it than be wanting in this part and in pursuit 
of this resolution. . . . We shall always think we best 
recommend ourselves to his Lordship by plain truths, 
though they should prove displeasing, and shall ever 
make it our choice rather to serve his Lordship without 
pleasing him than to please him without serving him 
should those offices ever unhappily be incompatible, and 
in the same manner we now treat your honors."^ 

Though the feelings of the upper house were deeply 
wounded by such messages, after the objectionable clause 

1 U. H. J., October 20, 22, 1724. 2 l. h. J., October 28, 1724. 



272 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

in the old bill was altered so as to read, " According to 
the laws, statntes, and reasonable customs of England, 
and the acts of assembly and constitution of this pro- 
vince," it passed both houses. ^ But neither the governor 
nor the lord proprietor would assent to it, even after the 
upper house, in an address to the lord proprietor, had ex- 
pressed more than doubt as to his position being tenable. ^ 

Little more was done with respect to the matter until 
the year 1727. In the meantime the weak governor per- 
mitted the judges to take any oaths they saw fit, with the 
result that those of scarcely any two courts took the 
same.^ So, after the committee on grievances and courts 
of justice had reported that under such conditions they 
were afraid the constitution of the })r<)vince was liable to 
destruction, the lower house passed an oath bill couched 
in the same terms as those of the act which the lord 
proprietor had rejected two years before. This time 
the upper house objected to the bill not only because 
it was the same as the previous act from which the lord 
proprietor had already dissented, but because it provided 
for a too general introduction of the laws of England, and 
because it gave no preference to the acts of the Maryland 
Assembly when provisions contained in them differed 
from those of the statutes of I-jiglaiid.'* 

lint in response to the reijuest of the upper house a 
conference was held, and thereby the following phrase- 
ology was agreed u})on for the clause in question: "Accord- 
ing to the directions of the acts of assembly so far forth as 
they provide, and where they are silent, according to the 
laws, statutes, and reasonable customs of England agree- 
able to the usage and constitution of this province.*"^ 

1 r. 11. J., November 4, 1724. » L. II. .1,. October 14, 1727. 

- Ibid., November 5, 1725. •♦ l'. II J., October 17, 1727. 

6 Ihid., October 18, 1727. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 273 

With this clause inserted the oath bill again passed both 
houses. The lord proprietor, however, was still alarmed 
by the resolutions of the lower house passed in 1722, and 
he felt, or pretended to feel, that he must be on his guard 
against subtle designs to encroach on his prerogative as 
well as on that of the crown. He, therefore, disallowed 
the act of 1727, and sent over a form of an oath in which 
the disputed clause read, "-According to the laws, customs, 
and directions of the acts of assembly of this province, 
and where they are silent according to the laws, stat- 
utes, and reasonable customs of England as have been 
used and practised in this province." ^ 

After the dissent, the reasons therefor, and the form of 
oath sent by the lord proprietor had been laid before the 
lower house, in 1728, the province became more thoroughly 
aroused than ever before. When the committee on laws 
had reported its opinion with respect to the form of oath 
sent by the lord proprietor, the lower house addressed 
the governor in the following words: " Although we are 
really concerned that there should be any difference be- 
tween his Lordship and his tenants, yet it is the greatest 
consolation imaginable to us to know that they liave 
given no occasion for a difference unless a firm attach- 
ment to the interest and welfare of their country, and a 
fixed resolution to hand the same rights and liberties 
which they have derived from their ancestors and the 
laws of their mother country and this province pure and 
undefiled to posterity be such. If these be causes of 
differences, we hope they will never cease. . . . We are 
at a loss to conceive how the laying of judges under the 
obligation of an oath to administer justice according to 
the laws that ought to be the rule of all their decisions 
could give his Lordship any apprehensions or oblige his 

1 L. H. J., Octobers, 4, 1728. 



274 MAUYLANl) AS A J'Kol'K 1 K PA It V PROVINCE 

Lordship to dissent to an, act that has no other tendency 
nor can without the greatest viohition of its sense and the 
intention of the makers of it contained in clear and ex- 
plicit terms be otiierwise considered but to oblige the 
magistrates to do their duty. . . . We liave taken the 
form of oath mentioned in your Honor's speech into our 
most serious consideration, and we b(!g leave to acquaint 
your Honor that w'e conceive it to be so far from secui'ing 
to us and our posterity the same measure of law and right 
which our ancestors and ourselves have ever enjoyed, 
that it is calculated (we hope contrary to his Lordshi[)'s 
intentions) to undermine all or the greater part of our 
most valuable privileges and to deprive us of the means 
of securing them, which we conceive to be the benefit of 
all the Eiiglish laws, securative and confirmatory of the 
rights and liberties of the subject." Then it was pointed 
out that by the words, "as have been used and practised 
in this province," the people of Maryland might be de- 
prived of the benefit not only of all the acts of parliament 
tliat should be made in the future, but also such of the acts 
of parliament already made as were not shcnvn by the court 
records to liave been already made use of in the province.^ 
Several days later the lower house passed anotlier oath 
bill in which the part relating to the laws of England 
was as follows, ''According to the laws, statutes, and 
reasonable customs of England agreeable to the use aiul 
constituticm of this province." The upper house amended 
this by inserting the words "as are" before the word 
"agreeal)le." But when the lower house objected on the 
ground lliat " as are " and "as now are" were convertible 
terms, and hence too nearly like the form proposed by the 
lord proprietor, tlie u]iper house yielded ; and for the 
tliird time an oath 1)111 passed both liouses. 

1 L. II. J., Ortober Sand 7, 1728. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 275 

Never before had the spirit of the lower house been 
more resolute than at this session. It was also demon- 
strated at this time that that body was possessed of an 
able leader in the person of Daniel Dulany, chairman of 
its committee on laws, who, in clear and cogent terms, had 
drawn up, not only the important report of that committee, 
but also the address to the governor. Moreover, the influ- 
ence of this man was made to extend far beyond the walls 
of the assembly room. For, the month following the 
prorogation, there appeared from his pen a pamphlet 
entitled, The Right of Maryland to the Benefit of the 
English Laws. This pamphlet could not have failed to 
instruct and enlighten the people and thereby strengthen 
their cause, for like his other writings it was clear in ex- 
pression, sound in reason, and convincing in argument. 

Nevertheless, the lord proprietor again rejected the 
oath bill. And again, in 1730, — this time with but 
little discussion, — an oath bill passed both houses with 
the following provision relating to the laws of England, 
" According to the reasonable customs of England and 
the laws and statutes thereof as are or shall hereafter be 
enacted agreeable to the usage or constitution of this 
province." ^ A joint address from both houses was sent 
to the lord proprietor urging him to assent to this act.^ 
But for the fourth time he dissented. 

It is, therefore, not strange that in 1731, when the new 
governor. Ogle, arrived, he found the country " as hot as 
possible about the English statutes and the judge's oath." ^ 
It is not strange that all the judges of Calvert County 
had refused to take the oath, even though it but directed 
them to act according to the best of their skill and cun- 
ning. The conditions then existing also explain why it 

1 L. H. J., June 5, 1730. 2 u. H. J., June 16, 1730. 

3 Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 82. 



276 MARYLAND AS A I'KOPRIETAIIY PROVINCE 

Wiis tliiit from that year all the members of the council 
were i)laced at the head of the list of justices for each 
county.^ 

This same year, for the fifth time, both houses passed 
an oath bill. But this time it did not pass the governor. 

Finally, the next year, 1732, just after an election of 
delegates. Governor Ogle said to both houses, " I am 
firmly persuaded that his Lordship and the country aim 
at the same thing in relation to the oath of judge or jus- 
tice, the end of both being the safety of the people and 
the security of their lil)ert3- and property, though they 
may differ a little in the means." Although he laid be- 
fore the Assembly the same form of an oath as that sent 
over by the lord proprietor in 1728, yet he said that if 
that form was not agreeable, he desired assistance in repre- 
senting such necessary alterations as might meet the ap- 
proval of all parties. After listening to this speech the 
lower house passed a bill very much like that of the pre- 
ceding year. Hut after the upper house had declined 
to pass it, that body requested a conference. The lower 
house granted the request. A conference soon agreed 
upon the form of an oath which, embodied in a bill, passed 
both houses, was signed by the governor, and assented to 
by the lord proprietor. In that l)ill which thus became a 
law and was continued in force to the end of the proprie- 
tary government, the long-disputed clause was as follows, 
" According to the laws, customs, and directions of the 
acts of assembly of this province so far forth as they 
provide, and wliere they are silent according to tlie laws, 
statutes, and reasonable customs of England as used and 
practised in this province." 

This virtually left the case as it had stood in the year 
1722; but as it was in that year the lord proprietor who 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 2, pp. 83, 90. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 277 

was thought to be endeavoring to destroy precedent, the 
success of the bill just mentioned was regarded as a 
triumph for the representatives of the people. Thereafter 
the lord proprietor continued to instruct the governor to 
pass no bill whereby the English statutes should be intro- 
duced in gross; while the lower house occasionally passed 
a resolution to declare some favorite English statute to be 
in force within the province. 

However, when a criminal code is of an uncertain and 
indefinite character, crime must necessarily be encouraged. 
That this was tlie case in Maryland there is evidence in a 
message sent by Governor Eden to the lower house, after 
both he and his predecessor, Sharpe, had endeavored to 
have the Assembly determine just what penal statutes of 
England extended to Maryland. Thus, in part, he said : 
" Persons convicted on some English statutes having been 
discharged with impunity, because the extent of those 
laws was doubted, I am persuaded that the principle of 
apparent lenity not being as generally understood, as the 
impunity has been observed, the circumstance has pro- 
duced a degree of flattering reliance that equal tenderness 
would be showni to offenders convicted on laws indubita- 
bly existent and operative ; and thus the uncertainty I 
have taken notice of, by lessening the dread of punish- 
ment, has proved an insnaring encouragement to the com- 
mission of crimes."^ 

1 L. H. J., October 25, 1771. The penalties that were imposed by acts of 
the Marjiland Assembly, during or after the year 1715, were, principally, the 
following : a person convicted of embezzling, impairing, razing, or alter- 
ing any will or record within the province, whereby the estate or inheri- 
tance or freehold of any person should be defeated, injured, or in any ways 
altered, was to forfeit all his goods, chattels, lands, and tenements, be set 
in the pillory for two hours, and have both his ears nailed thereto and cut 
from off his head ; a person convicted of stealing that which was valued at 
less than one thousand pounds of tobacco was to pay fourfold, be put in 



278 i^iAiiYLAM) AS A im:()Im:ii:ta iiv province 

the pillory, and given not to exceed forty lashes ; a person convicted of 
fornication was to be lined ;>0.s. or six hundred pounds of tobacco ; a per- 
son convicted of adultery was to be lined £•', or twelve hundred pounds of 
tobacco ; a person convicted of wilfully burning a courthouse Wiis to suf- 
fer death without benelit of clergy ; a perscni convicted of blasphemy 
was for the first offence to be bored through the tongue and fined £20 
sterling, or, if unable to pay the fine, be imprisoned for six months; for 
the second offence, to be stigmatized by burning in the forehead with the 
letter B and fined £40, or, if unable to pay the fine, be imprisoned for one 
year; and for the third offence to suffer death without benefit of clergy; 
a person found guilty of profane swearing was to be fined 2s. (kl. for the 
first offence and 5.s. for every offence after the first ; a drunkard was to be 
fined 5.S-. for every offence of drunkenness — if the swearer or drunkard was 
unable to pay the fine, he was to be put in the stocks or given not to ex- 
ceed thirty-nine lashes ; a person convicted of breaking the Sabbath was 
to be fined two hundred pounds of tobacco ; a negro or other slave con- 
victed of petit treason, or murder, or wilfully burning a house, might be 
sentenced to have his right hand cut off, hanged, head severed from the 
body, body divided into four quarters and set up in the most public places 
of the county where the act was committed ; a person convicted of break- 
ing into a shop, storehouse, or warehouse, and stealing from thence any 
goods to the value of [)s., was to suffer death as a felon without benefit of 
clergy ; a person convicted of cutting or destroying tobacco or exciting 
others to do so was to be fined £1(I0 sterling and be imprisoned for six 
months ; a person convicted of wilfully burning another's tobacco, or of 
aiding or abetting in such an offence, was to suffer death as a felon without 
Jbejiefit of clergy ; a slave convicted of insurrection, murder, poison, rape 
of white women, or burning houses, was to suffer death as a felon with- 
out benefit of clergy. 



CHAPTER IV 

MILITARY AFFAIRS 

If, besides being the recipient of powers similar in kind 
to those of an absolute monarch, the lord proprietor, as 
grantee of the soil, had been able out of his own private 
resources to provide the province with such essentials to 
self-preservation as military protection and the support 
of a civil service, it is difficult to conceive how those 
clauses in the charter which guaranteed to the people 
all their rights as English subjects could have been en- 
forced, unless by the interference of the mother country. 
But as grantee of the soil the proprietor was thrown into 
too close a competition with the crown and with other 
proprietors to make it possible for him to obtain an 
income large enough to meet such ends and to suppl}^ 
his more private wants. The consequence was that for 
the essentials of self-preservation, tlie most potent forces 
in determining the development of the province, the lord 
proprietor was dependent on the people. Even the 
revenue from certain duties, which the people claimed 
had been appropriated for the purpose of defence, was 
taken by the lord proprietor for his private use ; and 
such claims could but add force to the opposition. Then, 
too, as the neighboring colonies protected Maryland from 
the Indians, that very protection helped the people to 
refuse to place more than a very weak military organi- 
zation within the control of the government. Finally, 

279 



280 MAltVI.ANI) A.S A I'KOlMtlETAll V PKOVINCE 

during the fouilli intercolonial war, when the crown 
asked for assistance, the lower house passed supply bills 
greatly prejudicial to the lord proprietor ; and after the 
upper house had rejected those bills, the lower house did 
its best to re[)resent the whole proprietary system in an 
unfavorable light before the ci'own. 

At the beginning the lord proprietor made the gov- 
ernor his " Lieutenant (ieneral. Admiral, Chief Captain, 
and Commander as well by sea as land," gave him jjower 
to appoint and instruct all military oflicers under him, 
and instructed him to cause all men able to bear arms to 
be trained weekly or monthly. But unless the lord pro- 
prietor himself supported a standing force within the 
province, all else could avail little without an effective act 
of assembly to provide for a strongly organized, a well- 
equipped, and a well-disciplined militia. 

There is little doubt but that the militia bill which was 
before the Assembly in the year 1(337—38 was one of the 
bills first sent over by the lord proprietor. Among those 
bills which passed the second reading in the 3ear 1638-39 
was one for directing every housekee})er to keep every 
one of his household that was able to bear arms furnished 
witli one serviceable gun, one shot bag, one pound of good 
powder, four ])ounds of shot, a sword, and a belt. This 
same bill authorized the captain of St. ^Mary's and the 
captain of Kent Island, or any of their sergeants, to de- 
UKiud once a month at every dwelling house a view of 
arms and ammunition, authorized them to impose a fine 
for every default, and to furnish persons with whatever 
was found wanting at any price not above doul)le the real 
value. This bill also provided that upon any alarm every 
householder of each hundred, having in his family three 
men or more able to bear arms, should send one man com- 
pletely armed for every such three men and two for every 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 281 

five, and so proportionably to such place as should be 
appointed by the commander or pro]3er officer of the hun- 
dred.i But this bill did not become a law, and in its 
stead was passed an act that authorized the two captains, 
at the discretion of the governor, to use and command all 
power which they deemed necessary for the safety and 
defence of the province. 

With ample authority, therefore, rather than strong 
support, the governor, advised by his council, was left 
free to organize the militia as he saw fit. Some time in 
the first years of the colony he appointed a captain for 
St. Mary's and a captain for Kent Island ; and either he 
or the captain appointed a sergeant for each hundred. 
A little later he placed the mustering and training of the 
militia of the whole province under the general super- 
vision of a mustermaster general, for whose support, 
until 1671, the Assembly caused a tax of four pounds of 
tobacco per poll to be levied. But from about the year 
1661 the militia of each county was placed in charge of 
a colonel under whom were majors, caj^tains, lieutenants, 
and sergeants. On some occasions, when war was threat- 
ening, a major general was appointed for each shore. 
The office of mustermaster general became extinct, prob- 
ably before the year 1689. 

In the early commissions, the captain, with the aid of 
the sergeants, was authorized by the governor to muster 
and train the militia as often as he saw fit ; also to view 
at every dwelling house the arms and ammunition, and 
to fine anybody found to be in default with respect to the 
same ; and, finally, to execute martial law for the suppres- 
sion of mutiny, and in case of sudden invasion of the 
Indians to make war against them.^ 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-38 to 1604, 
p. 77 et seq. ^ Proceedings of the Council, 1036 to 1007, pp. 75, 86. 



282 MAllVI.ANI) AS A PROIMM K I' AIIV I'KOVINCE 

But how stronoly inclined the people were to keep 
military power witliin their own control, is seen from the 
work of the Assembly in 1041). An act made tliat year 
provided for a meeting of the freemen of each hundred 
at some })laee within their hundred on the three last days 
of each month from Ajjril to September inclusive. At 
those meetings such ordinances were to be passed as those 
present deemed necessary for the defence of their hundred 
during the month following, and the commander of the 
hundred was to see that those ordinances were put into 
execution. 

Not until the proprietary government had been tempo- 
rarily superseded by the government of the Puritan com- 
missioners did the General Assembly pass a militia act. 
But even by that act, although all persons between the 
ages of sixteen and sixty were required to supply them- 
selves with serviceable arms and suflicient ammunition of 
powder and shot, though the captain and other officers 
of each county were directed to view the arms and ammu- 
nition, and each captain was to be authorized to train tlie 
militia, there were no specific directions given and no 
penalty whatever was named for disobedience. 

Finally, however, in 1()G1, a more adequate militia act 
was passed. Its preamble stated that, for want of a 
necessary law, training had been greatly neglected even 
in time of danger. This act authorized the colonel, lieu- 
tenant colonel, major, and t-aptain to enlist such persons 
between the ages of sixteen and sixty as the}' saw fit, 
provided only that a uniform proportion was kept be- 
tween those enlisted and the entire j'opulation of any 
district. It authorized tlie same olficeis to train the 
militia four tinu's a year, aiul even more than four times 
if the governor and council should see cause for so order- 
iuLT. NothiuLT was said in the ail about viewing arms 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 283 

and ammunition at each dwelling house, but everybody 
summoned to the place of training was to appear there 
with gun and powder. And the act aimed at securing 
obedience by providing for the imposition of fines and in 
certain cases for imprisonment. In 1678 the act was so 
amended as to empower the governor and council to 
make levies on the people whenever it was necessary 
to meet the payment of small charges ; but the whole 
amount so levied was not to exceed fifty thousand pounds 
of tobacco in any one year. At the same time, also, 
special provision was made in the act for a company of 
horse in each county. Otherwise the act of 1661 was 
continued with but little change down to the Revolution 
of 1689, and even upon the establishment of the royal 
government essentially the same law was continued. 

The training of the militia under this law was not satis- 
factory to the government. From 1697 to 1701 the gov- 
ernor and the upper house again and again urged the lower 
house to take some action toward providing the province 
with a more serviceable militia. Recommendations were 
made for giving the militia officers greater power, for ap- 
pointing and paying a master adjutant to train the militia 
six times a year, and for requiring every six taxables to 
furnish one well-equipped footman, and every nine taxa- 
bles one well-equipped trooper. 

In 1696 the lower house referred such recommendations 
to the consideration of the committee on laws. Although 
that committee reported as their opinion that the execu- 
tion of what had been recommended would tend much 
toward the regulation of the militia, it nevertheless held 
that it was not advisable in such a time of danger from 
the Indians to change a law with which the inhabitants 
were so well acquainted. It proposed that a copy of the 
recommendations should be submitted to the people of 



284 MARYLAND AS A PROPHIETAK V I'KOVINCE 

every county, who, after consideration tliereof, should 
instruct their delegates to the next Asseml)ly.^ The 
house concurred in the report of its coniniittee and stated 
that, considering the great deserts between the inhabit- 
ants and the enemy, it thought the present militia, if well 
armed, would be sufficient for defence. It would seem 
that the representative body was well sustained by its 
constituents, for that same body gave little attention to 
further messages from the other branches of the legisla- 
ture with respect to the militia until five years later.^ 
Even then the committee appointed for considering the 
proposed changes in the old militia law reported against 
such changes on tlie ground that the defect was not with 
the law, but with the execution of it ; and again the lower 
house concurred with the report of its committee and de- 
clared to the upper house that the constitution of the 
province would admit of no better law.^ Little further 
discussion arose during the remainder of the royal period. 
In 1715 the old law was continued by an act, the duration 
of which was limited to three years and to the end of the 
next session of assembly after the expiration of the three 
years. In 1719 it was likewise continued. In 1721 the 
upper house complained that, for want of power in the 
captains to line the disobedient, several of the chit-f militia 
officers were discouraged from performing their duty by 
being rather despised and affronted than respected and 
obeyed by private sentinels.* IJut in its reply to this 
complaint the lower house gave its opinion that the mili- 
tia law provided a sufficient punishment. Later messages 
from the upper house concerning the matter were likewise 
of no avail until the next year, after the governor had 
made his plea, the lower house was persuaded to pass an 

1 L. H. J., June 4, l(i97. ^ //,/,7.. :May i:3, 1701. 

2 Ibid., March 20 and November 2, lOOS. ^ U. 11. .1., July 22. 1721. 



MILITARY AB^FAIRS 285 

act which authorized any two field oificers to adjudge fines 
and award execution for not appearing at musters. The last 
provision of this act was that the old militia law, which was 
about to expire, should be revived and continued in full 
force; and, consequently, as the new act was unlimited as to 
its duration, the old law was at this time made perpetual. 

But the new disciplinary measure did not serve to bring 
about such training as was desired ; and during the year in 
which the controversy over English statutes was put to rest, 
the governor again asked tliat the militia officers might be 
given sufficient power to oblige men to appear at musters 
and learn the necessary discipline. ^ For one year the gov- 
ernor and council, out of the duty of threepence for arms and 
ammunition, paid an adjutant to train the militia; and the 
lower house was urged to pass a bill to provide for the pay- 
ment of such an officer. The next year, also, during his pres- 
ence in the General Assembly, the lord proprietor himself 
recommended amendments to the militia law.^ The lower 
house responded by passing another supplementary militia 
act. Yet that act went no further than to provide for a dis- 
tribution of arms and ammunition and to impose insufficient 
penalties for misbehavior at musters. Further urging by 
the governor, in the year 1740, resulted in nothing. 

In 1744, during the third intercolonial war, the gov- 
ernor received instructions from the home government to 
put the militia in the best condition possible. He accord- 
ingly pointed out to the Assembly that the old law was 
extremely defective, and declared that it was absolutely 
necessary to make the militia more serviceable. The 
lower house thereupon appointed a committee to consider 
what was necessary. And in its report that committee 
recommended that the power of the captains be increased ; 
that conviction for non-attendance at musters be made 

1 U. H. J., August 3, 4, and 5, 17:J2. 2 ii,i,i^ March 1(5, 1732-33. 



286 MAKVLANI) AS A rit()l'i:ii:TA i;v I'KOVINCE 

eiisiur ; that the constal)le of the hiiiidictl he eiiahled hy a 
warrant under the hand of any two lield ol'iicers to eonipel 
a delinquent to a[)pear and answer the comphiint of his 
officers; and tliat the field oflicers be obliged to hold a 
court-martial at least once a year on a certain day at 
the courthouse of each county. ^ 

But the house did nothing with the recommendation of 
this committee. Two days after the report had been pre- 
sented, Governor IJladen laid before the house a paragraph 
of a letter from Philadelphia, together with a message in 
which he said that he hojx'd the example of a neighboring 
colony, which, from its principles of religion, had long per- 
sisted in refusing to provide for its own defence, but now 
so thoroughly convinced of its danger that it appeared 
to be actuated by the principles of self-preservation, might 
have some effect on those whom he was addressing. But 
whether the representatives of the people of Maryland 
would act upon the same principles or rather choose to dis- 
tinguish themselves from all the neighboring colonies, and 
indeed the rest of mankind, by neglecting the necessaiy 
means of their safety, he left it to their judgment and 
conscience to decide. ^ 

The lower house gave this message little attention 
except to resolve that it contained oldiipie and unkind 
reflections on the conduct of its members. Vet the execu- 
tive pursued the unwise course still further. For many 
years the governor and council had made no use of that 
clause in the militia act which empowered them to levy a 
sura not exceeding tift}^ thousand pounds of tobacco in any 
one year for the payment of small charges. But now, 
after the prorogation of this Assenddy, they proceeded to 
levy a tax of one i)Ound of tobacco per poll, for which 
there was apparently no other motive than mere spite 
1 L. II. J., May :]!, 1744. 2 7/,,-^.^ jmie 2, 1744. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 287 

against the lower house. Nothing could have more effec- 
tively defeated the attempt to obtain a better militia law 
tlian such an abuse of power. That abuse produced a 
still greater effect. From that time the lower house not 
only refused to amend the old militia law, but pretended 
that that law had expired in the year 1725. They said 
the law of 1715 was a temporary one, that the law of 1719, 
which continued it, was also temporary, and that, there- 
fore, the act of 1722, which both amended and continued 
it, was not intended to continue it for a longer time than 
had the acts of 1715 and 1719. Although this could have 
been nothing but a pretence, such an attitude of the lower 
house did not fail to make the militia force still weaker 
than it had been. 

The concluding sentences of the governor's last message 
in the controversy at this time are sufficient to show the 
spirit that had been awakened. He said : " It is really a 
pity your earnestness to deprive the province of a perpet- 
ual law for ordering the militia in its defence, and to 
divest the government of a power to raise tifty thousand 
pounds of tobacco in a year, should engage your house to 
use so much time and paper in order to confound the sense 
of yourselves and everybody else on so plain a point as 
the perpetuity of the present militia law, ... I am deter- 
mined with the advice of the council to put the same in 
execution in all its parts as often as occasion requires, till 
I am satisfied by some better reasons that the law of 1715 
has been expired ever since 1725, contrary to the common 
sense which I am master of."^ 

During Governor Sharpe's administration, even in the 
midst of the fourth intercolonial war, the lower house con- 
tinued to intimate that the law was not in force ; and the 
several attempts of even a man like Sharpe to obtain a 

1 L. H. J., 'September 28, 1745. 



288 MARYLAND AS A PROIMIIKTARY PROVINCE 

niilithi law like those in force in the northern colonies 
found little favor. In 17')(> Sharpe wrote to Secretary 
Calvert as follows: " I am sure the situation of affairs 
in America, and the circumstances of this and the neighbor- 
ing provinces in particular, make a good militia law exceed- 
ingly ex})edient. Hut the people in general are very averse 
to every law of that sort, and their sense, I doubt not, will 
determine their Representatives. Mr. Hammond, who is 
a leading man in the house, says he thinks it would become 
them to recommend it to the people to provide themselves 
with arms and to learn to use them, but that every step 
farther than that would abridge the liberty to which as 
Englishmen they have an inviolable right." ^ 
fNot until the people had come to feel their supremacy 
over the lord [)roprietor, not until it had become possible 
to keep a militia force under their own control, and when, 
also, it was felt that such a force was needed to resist the 
oppression of the mother country, did the people of Mary- 
land come to think that a strong militia force would be a 
protection and nut a hindrance to the cause of liberty. 
But when that time did come they were as enthusiastic in 
its favor as they had formerly been determined against it. 
Thus, in 1774, the provincial Congress was unanimous in 
the following resolution : "That a well-regulated militia, 
composed of gentlemen, freeholders, and other freemen is 
the natural strength and only stal)le security of a free 
efovernmeut, and that sucli militia will relieve our mother 
country from any expense in our protection and defence, 
will obviate the jiretence of a necessity for taxing us on 
that account, and render it unnecessary to keep any stand- 
ing army (ever dangerous to liberty) in this province. 
And, therefore, it is reconnnended to such of the said 
inhabitants of this ])rovince, as are from sixteen to lifty 

* Sbarpe's Correspoudence, Vol. I, p. 491. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 289 

years of age, to form tliemselves into companies of sixty- 
eight men ; to choose a Captain, two Lieutenants, an 
Ensign, four Sergeants, four Corporals, and one Drummer 
for each company ; and use their utmost endeavors to 
make themselves masters of the military exercise ; that 
each man be provided with a good firelock and bayonet 
fitted thereon, half a pound of powder, two pounds of 
lead with a powder horn and bag for ball, and be in 
readiness to act on any emergency." I 

In accordance with that resolution it was not long 
before companies were formed in the several towns and 
hundreds. A royalist observer wrote at the time as fol- 
lows : ^ The inhabitants of this province are incorpo- 
rated under military regulations and apply the greater 
part of their time to the different branches of discipline. 
In Annapolis there are now two companies ; in Baltimore, 
seven. And in every district of this province the major- 
ity of the people are actually under arms. Almost every 
hat is decorated with a cockade." ^ 

If the defective laws for training the militia were a 
source of weakness to the executive, the meagre supply 
of arms and ammunition and the nature of the controversy 
arising with respect thereto not only directly increased 
that weakness, but added to the hostility between the 
lord proprietor and the people. P'rom the first, the 
requirements of the governor that everybody able to 
bear arms should provide himself with arms and ammuni- 
tion were not well complied with. In 1664 it was stated, 
in the preamble to an act of assembly, that the province 
was in great danger because of the negligence of its 
inhabitants in not providing themselves with sufficient 
arms and ammunition. The same act, therefore, provided 
for levying a tax of one thousand pounds of tobacco in 

1 Maryland Gazette, December 8, 1774. ^ Eddis, p. 216. 





290 MAKVLAM) AS A riturillETAKY rilUVlNCE 

order to help remove tlie danger. Again, two years later, 
the lower house voted that for protection from the Indians 
it was necessary that each county should have a magazine 
supplied with certain arms and ammunition ; and steps 
were taken toward that end. 

The next action in this matter was taken in l<i71, when, 
as a result of shifting the responsibility for a supply of 
arms and ammunition from the people to the lord proprie- 
tor, a cause of complaint against the latter originated. 
For it was in that year that the act was passed for 
giving the lord proprietor the two-shilling duty on con- 
dition that he accept tobacco at tw'opence per pound in 
payment for his quit-rents, and on condition, also, that 
one-half the duty " be employed toward the maintaining 
a constant magazine with arms and ammunition for the 
defence of the province and defraying other necessary 
charges of government."^ On two occasions it appears 
that the lord proprietor, Cecilius, urged his son and gov- 
ernor, Charles, to make the needed provision for arms 
and ammunition. In his first reply the governor simply 
stated that he would do so if sufficient provision could be 
made out of the quit-rents. But one year later he wrote 
that he had sent for 250 muskets, and gave his assurance 
that he would soon take such action with respect to the 
matter that the lord proprietor would have no reason to 
chide nor the i)C0})le to complain. ^ ^Vnd by 1()78 a small 
sup[)ly had been provided for each of the several counties. 

But the act for the duty of two shillings reduced the value 
of quit-rents nearly one-half, and therefore gave the gov- 
ernment no liberal su})port. Moreover, under the condi- 
tions then existing, Charles Calvert was by no means the 
man to make unnecessarily large expenditures for such 
means of defence. A growing opposition availed itself 

1 Supra, p. 79. ^Caivert Papers, No. 1, p. 290. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 291 

of every opportunity to make charges against hira. Con- 
sequently, at tlie time of Bacon's rebellion in Virginia, 
it was a general complaint in Maryland, as well as in 
Virginia, that provision for defence had been grievously 
neglected ; ^ and after the Revolution of 1689 one of the 
charges against the lord proprietor was that he had not 
provided each county with a public magazine sufficient 
for defence, as he was required by law to do, and paid 
tlierefore "at least ,£2000 sterling per annum." ^ But the 
unreasonableness of the people could not have been less 
in degree than the oppression of the lord proprietor, if 
they expected him to make any large expenditure for arms 
and ammunition out of his income from that duty. 

Upon the establishment of the royal government the 
Assembly gave one-half of the two-shilling duty for 
the governor's support, while for a fund for arms and 
ammunition the same Assembly endeavored to apj)ro- 
priate a part of the lord proprietor's tonnage duty. But 
the crown soon directed that the proprietor should not 
be deprived of that duty.^ A few years later, also, the 
crown further directed that threepence of the twelve- 
pence duty for the governor's support should be used for 
the purchase of arms and ammunition, and that fund, thus 
fixed by order of the crown, remained unchanged to the 
end of the period of royal government.* 

Two years after the restoration of the proprietary 
government, the new revenue law for the support of gov- 
ernment and the payment of quit-rents made express 
provision for the threepence duty for arms and amnuini- 
tion. • That duty was therefore raised until the tempo- 
rary revenue law of 1717 expired in 1733. Yet, in 1729, 
the lower house began to make inquiry into the applica- 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 10(57 to 1687-88, pp. l.']4-136. 
2 Ibid. , 1187-88 to 1693, p. 216, 3 Sujyra, p. 90. * U. H. J. , May 12, 1701. 



292 MAltYLANU AS A PROPKIETAKV TROVINCE 

tion that was matle of it ; and in 1732 the same house, 
by a vote of tAventy-two to eighteen, resolved that the 
said duty should be applied as the governor and the two 
houses of Assembly should think lil.^ 

After the temporary revenue law had expired in 1733, 
revenue for the support of tlie governor was collected 
according to the perpetual law of 170-1. As threepence 
of the twelvepence under the perpetual law had been 
used for the purchase of arms and ammunition, the ques- 
tion may arise why the lower liouse did not at this time 
insist tliai the same proportion of that duty shouhl again be 
used for the purpose. But it shoukl be remembered that 
at the time the perpetual law was suspended the hogsheads 
were enlarged enough to cause the duty for tlie support of 
the governor to be increased threepence ; and that the 
perpetual law was in force had not yet been denied. 

The question of passing an act for no other purpose* 
than to continue to raise the threepence duty therefore 
stood at this time on its own merits. But the lower house 
found that a large amount I'aised by this duty had not yet 
been expended ; and so, in spite of the governor's urging, 
no bill was passed in 1733 for continuing it. One year 
later, however, the governor again laiil the matter before 
the Assembly ; 2 and this time the lower house passed 
a bill which directed that the money should be disposed 
of by the governor and l)oth houses, instead of by the 
governor and couniil. Hut when the upper house objected 
to such a provision for disposing of the money, the lower 
liouse yielded, and the bill became a law. 

The lower house nevertheless continued to call for 
accounts, and to examine into the condition of arms on 
hand, and by 1739 several other disputes had caused that 
house to become quite unreasonable. In that year it 

' L. II. J., August 5, 1732. 2 u. II. J., starch 20, 1734-35. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 293 

began to contend that the lord proprietor was not justly 
entitled to the fourteen-pence tonnage duty, that the per- 
petual revenue law of 1704 was no longer in force, and 
that, if it were in force, threepence of that duty should 
be used for the purchase of arms and ammunition. ^ More- 
over, the amount on hand had increased ; and the house 
at least pretended that a considerable sum was unac- 
counted for. As a consequence of these several condi- 
tions, after the governor had stated that he thought his 
accounts must have been satisfactory, after he had in the 
most earnest manner urged the renewal of the law, and 
after the upper house had endeavored to show how the 
passage of such a bill, at a time when war was threatening 
in Europe, so nearly concerned the honor and preserva- 
tion of Maryland, the lower house gave to the upper house 
its view of the matter in the following words : " If the 
honor and preservation of this part of his Majesty's 
Dominions be so nearly concerned as you are pleased to 
say, in the threepence act for arms and ammunition, we 
cannot see how those who have had the disposition of the 
money hitherto raised for that use can acquit themselves 
for not applying it to the purposes for which it was raised. 
The uncertainty as to whether there should be peace or 
war in Europe having subsisted for some time, and there 
now being the sum of X 2250-11-2 sterling and X 31-1 3- 
7| current gold in bank, arising from that duty, besides 
upwards of X2500 sterling unifbcounted for in any man- 
ner, we have, as we think, justly concluded that his Excel- 
lency and your honors have been of the opinion either that 
arms and ammunition were useless to the province, or 
that there is a sufficient stock already provided, otherwise 
that you would never have neglected so essential a part of 
your duty as in the case of laying out that money, had 

iL. H. J., June 9, 1739. 



294 MARYLAND AS A PROPKIETAUY PROVINCE 

you tliouf^ht it necessary for tlie safety of the people. . *• . 
And further, inasmuch as his Lordship hath possessed 
himself of a considerable annual sum, amounting to at 
least <£2200, arising on the shipping trading into and 
stai)le export of this province, without any law that 
appears to us to levy the same, and which, were it legal 
to raise, was intended to support the government here, 
and particularly to supply a magazine with arms and 
ammunition, we do not think the revival of that law at 
present necessary.'' ^ 

But the duration of the existing law respecting arms and 
ammunition was to terminate only with tlie end of the next 
session of assembly ; and a meeting of the Assembly was 
not counted as a session unless at least one act was 
passed. Tlie upper house, therefore, as a council of state, 
advised the governor to withhold his assent from every 
bill passed by the two houses at this meeting. Hence, 
contrary to the will of the lower house, the threepence 
duty continued to be collected ; and the governor at- 
tempted to justify the means taken to win the victory by 
charging the lower house with acting from low motives, 
and contrary to the desires of the better element of the 
people. Thus, just before proroguing tlie Assembly, he 
answered the charges of the lower house with respect to 
the money in the bank and the money unaccounted for in 
such reproachful words as the following : " I cannot help 
saying that these are such low and mean aspersions, and 
so absolutely without the least foundation, that they must 
either be allowed to manifest a strong inclination to throw 
dirt or a desire to give some color to the violence of your 
proceedings, which you cannot but already begin to see 
has given offence to many of the best and wisest men in the 
Province, who I am persuaded will be daily more and more 

1 L. II. J., June 8, 1739. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 295 

convinced that violent personal malice and hatred have been 
stronger motives to your said proceedings than any true 
protestant English spirit for the good of your country." ^ 

The great majority of the people, however, undoubtedly 
supported the action of their representatives. Although 
the next year those representatives passed a bill for con- 
tinuing the threepence duty, yet that bill called for very 
strict accounts. It also provided that money remaining in 
the hands of the treasurers after a fixed time should be 
paid out as both houses might direct; and it provided that 
the act should continue only until Se})tember 29, 1741.2 

The upper house rejected this bill. Thereupon the 
lower house — after pointing out that the principal reason 
for that rejection was because the bill had not been made 
to continue for a certain time and to the end of the next 
session — proceeded to tell how dear experience had taught 
their body the ill consequence of making money laws to 
terminate with a session. They said that the effect of 
such a termination was to make a temporary law perpetual, 
or, at least, to make it continue so long as any one branch 
of the legislature desired it. They complained that, because 
the existing law res[)ecting arms and ammunition contained 
such a provision for its termination, the province had been 
deprived of a session for nearly three years ; that during 
those years the Assembly had been called and prorogued 
or dissolved from year to year, the country burdened with 
immense charges and oppressions daily experienced with- 
out an opportunity for redress ; and that the purpose of 
the upper house in continuing that law had been to drive 
them into things which they thought inconsistent with the 
interest of the province. Furthermore, the lower house 
again made mention of how, during the royal government, 
by order of the crown, one-fourth of the duty at this time 

1 L. H. J., June 11, 1739. 2 u. H. J., May 7, 1740. 



296 MArtVLANI) AS A rUOl'Iil HTAKV I'KoVINCE 

being collected for the governor's snp[)ort was tlien used 
for arms and ammunition. 1 liey pointed out Imw the 
l^ritish Parliament secured its annual sessions by giving 
for only one year at a time the duty most essential to the 
support of the government. Then they asked : " In our 
present situation where his Lordship takes the money 
for the support of govenunent under color of a perpetual 
law, and settles oilicers' fees l)y ordinance or proclamation, 
wliat have the peo[)le left them but this one bill to procure 
them frequent assemblies? . . . And should ever the 
Province be so unhappy as to be ruled by a Proprietary 
or Governor who should aim at arbitrary power and oppress 
the people, what remedy could they have when no means 
are left them of procuring assemblies ? How could ag- 
grievances be inquired into, oppressions and extortions sup- 
pressed, new laws made or old ones revived ? Would 
not such a Proprietary or Governor, as he has nothing to 
ask of an assembly, keep the people always without one ? " 
Finally, these representatives of the people said to the 
representatives of the proprietor, " Our duty obliges us 
to take care of the Province in every respect, and not 
while we are making provision against enemies abroad 
leave it a prey to those at home " and " We are, while we 
have the honor to represent the people of Maryland, 
firmly determined never to assent to an}' law of that kind 
with such an indefinite determination as you contend for, 
and we hope when we are discharged of the trust the}' 
will always find representatives who shall lirndy adhere to 
the same just resolutions."^ 

Both houses at last agreed to a conference, and at that 
conference it was arranged that the duty for arms and am- 
munition should be sixpence per hogshead, and that the 
duration of the law should be limited to three years. 

1 L. II. J., May 17, 1740. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 297 

But a new quarrel then arose. The upper house re- 
fused to proceed, to business until the lower house had 
sent up the supply bill for his Majesty's service and the 
bill for arms and ammunition, both of which had been 
agreed upon in conference. But the lower house feared 
that if those two bills were first passed, the upper house 
might then so amend some of the bills that were favorites 
with the people as to fix their duration to a certain day 
only, and not to the end of a session as formerly. The 
upper house held that the most important bills should 
have precedence, while the lower house held that those 
bills which had already been before the upper house for 
three weeks should have precedence. In this quarrel the 
governor took a part. Both the governor and the upper 
house felt that a concession to the lower house in this 
matter would have the plain tendency to render the upper 
house not only a ridiculous but a useless branch of the 
legislature, since it would make their submission abso- 
lutely necessary to whatever the lower house should be 
pleased to exact from them. At the same time the lower 
house passed the following resolution : " That the upper 
house, keeping before them the bills sent from this House 
longer than the usual and reasonable time upon any pre- 
tence whatsoever, is a dangerous innovation introductive 
of many inconveniences, and of altering the usual method 
of proceeding in assemblies ; and that threatening this 
house with the fall of those laws usually revived and reen- 
acted in which the public utility of the inhabitants is 
so essentially concerned till this house comply with 
their unreasonable demands, is using compulsory means 
with this House to give up the rights and privileges of 
the people, and tends to the making themselves absolute 
and the Delegates of the people useless."^ 

iL. II. J., June 5, 1740. 



298 MARYLAND AS A PROPUIETAUV I'UOVINCE 

Before this assembly was proroi^ueil the k)\vei- house 
passed the supply bill for his Majesty's service in carry- 
ing on the third intercolonial war. As neither the upper 
house nor the governor dared to reject that bill, this meet- 
ing of the Assembly of the year 1T4<» was made a session, 
and thereby the law of 1734 for arms and ammunition 
expired. IJut with it also expired several of the laws that 
were favorites of the people, and no new laws were made 
to take their place. 

The Assembly met again that same year, and the dispute 
as to which bills should have precedence again arose. 
After sitting two weeks without any prospect of an agree- 
ment, the lower house asked the governor to prorogue the 
Assembly. Whereupon the upper house yielded so far as 
to send down some of the bills which it had been with- 
holding. But that house still retained the bill for circuit 
courts and a bill for officers' fees. This drew from the 
lower house to the governor a long message in which, after 
reviewing the case from the beginning, that body said : 
"If the above be the true state of the case, who can blame 
the Representatives of a free people from guarding against 
a practice which in its conseijuence must affect their rights 
in their tenderest parts; which must render the House of 
Delegates a name only, or mere shadow by depriving them 
of that freedom of action, that share in legislation which 
by their Charter and Birthright the people are entitled 
to, which must prostitute them to the sole power of an 
Upper House and subject them at all times to the abso- 
lute will of their Governors. . . . We therefore conclude 
with the plainness your Excellency desires by telling you 
that we \\ill not introduce tlu* practice of ])argaiiiing what 
as British subjects the people ought to enjoy; that the bill 
for Qd. per hogshead has had its tirst reading, but that we 
are determined to proceed no further in that or any other 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 299 

money bill that may tax or burthen the country (those 
relating to his Majesty's service only excepted) until we 
have a regular return of the long-accustomed method of 
proceeding from the other Branches of the Legislature with 
this House, and of all our useful and necessary bills." ^ 

After this message had been delivered, the upper house 
sent down as not passed the two remaining bills. Al- 
though this was a complete concession as to parliamentary 
procedure, it is needless to say it did not satisfy the lower 
house. No further progress was made toward reaching an 
agreement at this session. 

At the opening of the session in the following year the 
government again urged that provision be made for a sup- 
ply of arms and aunnunition, and after the lower house 
had passed the favorite expired bills it passed one for 
military stores. But that bill directed that the duty to 
be imposed should be paid not to the treasurers as formerly, 
but to the speaker of the lower house, who with the money 
arising therefrom should purchase such arms and other 
warlike stores as the governor should direct. Further- 
more, the bill provided that, if the money were not laid 
out by the direction of the governor before the next session 
of assembly, then it should be applied for defraying the 
I)ublic charge as the lower house might direct. In that 
bill was also this provision ; namely, " Provided that noth- 
ing herein contained shall be deemed or construed to ex- 
tend to prejudice or take away any right or claim which 
the people of this Province have to any money heretofore 
or now levied by the Proprietor under color of the act of 
1704 for the settlement of a general revenue." And, 
lastly, the act was to continue only until September 29, 
1742.2 Of course the upper house did not pass the bill. 

In order to defeat the lower house in this contest, and 

1 L. II. J., July 25, 1740. "^ Ibid., June 18, 1741. 



300 MAllVLANI) AS A I'KoiMM RTA K V I'KOVINCE 

prevail iqion that l)u(ly l(j pass a bill which should restore 
to the governor and council their former power in the 
purchase of arms and ammunition, the lord proprietor ap- 
pointed a new governor and instructed him and the coun- 
cil to continue to withhold the bill for circuit courts, the 
bill for the recovery of small debts, and the bill for the 
relief of poor debtors till the bill for arms and ammuni- 
tion should [)ass the lower house in an acceptable form.^ 
It was on this occasion, also, more than at any other that 
the lord propi'ietor endeavored to make felt his power as 
territorial lord by authorizing the governor to pass the 
bill for the payment of quit-rents on terms favorable to 
the people, provided the lower house passed an acceptable 
bill for arms and ammunition. ^ Then, too, the third inter- 
colonial war being in progress, after the home government 
had directed that the province should be put in the best 
possible condition of defence, and when the upper house 
claimed that danger from the Indians was threatening, 
the governor and council, in an address to the crown 
endeavored to throw all the blame on the lower house. 
Thus in that address they said in part : " We your Maj- 
esty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor and Council of the said province, most humbly beg 
leave to approach your Majesty with this representation 
of the difficulties and obstacles we have met with in our 
endeavors to comply with these orders (to put the prov- 
ince in the best posture of defence) from those who being 
the representatives of the People in Assembly either from 
a mistaken notion of their duty to your Majesty and the 
true interest of their (^ountry, or from private and popular 
views inconsistent with both, have for some years past 
made oj)j)osition and clamors against this government and 
the administration thereof their principal rule and direc- 

1 C. U., March 20, 1743. 2 i^npra, p. 84. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 301 

tion in all their consultation and debates. . . . The 
Lower House of Assembly grasping at power in every 
instance ever since the year 1738 under various pretences 
have refused to raise that fund which has been from time 
to time continued for above twenty years for supplying 
this Province with arms and ammunition in such manner 
as hath been always before practised, and in the manage- 
ment whereof no just objection could be made to the Gov- 
ernor and Council, with whom the disposition was always 
intrusted for the use to which it Avas appropriated by the 
act. But when the present Lower House was this session 
pressed by an argument of the alarming attempt of an 
invasion of Great Britain, and the then imminent danger 
of a war with France, as well as by the order and direction 
of their Excellencies, the Lords Justices, they passed a 
bill for a provision of arms and ammunition for defence of 
the province almost of the same import with two bills 
in the two preceding sessions, and which they knew had 
been before rejected, since they could not be passed with- 
out a most severe reflection on the Lord Proprietary 
and Government." 1 

But in return for such a representation to the crown, 
the lower house more and more pressed their objection to 
the lord proprietor's taking to his own use, under color of 
law, the twelvepence duty — a part of which, they contin- 
ued to say, when legally raised, had been applied to the 
purchase of arms and ammunition. The bill for the pay- 
ment of quit-rents was not sufficiently popular to be of 
much force ; and after the governor had declared that the 
bill would be lost unless a fund were provided for arms 
and ammunition, the lower house by a vote of thirty-two 
to eighteen resolved, in effect, to do nothing further with 
respect to the desired fund. The new governor, Bladen, 

iC. R., June 0, 1744. 



302 MAKYLAND AS A IMIOTRIKTA l;V I'ROVIN'CE 

was iniu'li less qualified to engage in such a contest than 
was the old governor, Ogle, and the lower house prized 
victory in this contest far more highly than they did those 
three favorite laws. 

Moreover, by 174(3, instead of support coming from the 
crown to the lord proprietor and his government, some 
members of the government party seem to have suggested 
to the lord proprietor that it might be advisable to accept 
for a time the bill for arms and ammunition in the form of- 
fered by the lower house, lest, otherwise, the people should 
justify themselves to the crown, ^ In response to that 
suggestion the lord proprietor expressed a readiness to 
grant to the lower house a share in the disposal of the 
money that should be raised by the bill in question. But 
the war ended before any concession was made ; and in 
the year 1747, when Ogle again became governor and the 
inspection act Avas passed, the good feeling was so general 
that the lower house passed the bill in nearly the same 
form as that in which it had formerly existed as a law.^ 
However, its duration was limited to one year, and after 
reviving and continuing it but once it was suffered to 
expire September 29, 1749. When the new governor, 
Sharpe, was appointed, he was instructed to revive the 
old practice of refusing to pass the three bills above men- 
tioned until the lower house should pass the bill for arms 
and ammunition. That instruction was, however, this time 
so conditioned as to allow the governor and the upper 
house to pass those three bills without the bill for arms 
and ammunition if they thouglit it '•'expedient and abso- 
lutely necessary for the benefit, utility, and well being of 
the inhabitants of Maiyland." '^ And in aet-ordance with 

1 Dulany Papers ; Gilmore Papers. - Siipni, p. 117. 

8 C. K., October 17, 1753; Calvert Papers, private instructions; see 
also Sharpe'.s Correspondence, Vol. T. ]>. 12. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 303 

this condition those three bills were passed withont that 
for arms and ammunition ever again becoming a law. 

In the controversy over this one bill, therefore, the 
upper house learned how useless it was to try to drive the 
lower house by attempting to deprive the people of a ses- 
sion of assembly. The upper house yielded in the ques- 
tion of parliamentary procedure. Tlie use which the 
proprietor made of his power as territorial lord availed 
him nothing. In the relations with the crown the people 
showed themselves to have the advantage ; and when 
there was left to the government no other lever than the 
bill for circuit courts, the bill for the recovery of small debts, 
and the bill for the relief of poor debtors, its case was hope- 
less. This was a fit series of victories for the lower house 
to add to its victory in tlie contest over English statutes. ^ 

The occasions for defence of the province by means of 
fortifications arose from three sources ; namely, that the 
coast should be protected against foreign enemies, tliat 
the northern border should be guarded on account of the 
boundary dispute with the Penns, and that the western 
frontier should be made secure against the Indians. But 
the need for these defences was seldom great ; and the 
people showed themselves no more willing to make contri- 
butions for such fortifications than they did to subject 
themselves to a strong militia law. 

' Just as the question of arms and ammunition was closely 
connected with that of the twelvepence duty on tobacco, 
so also the question of coast fortification was connected 
with the fourteen-pence tonnage duty. Among the bills 
before the Assembly in the year 1637-38 — probably one 
of those sent over by the lord proprietor — was one for 
the erection of a fort ; and although that bill did not 
become a law, a fort was soon erected at St. Inigoes, near 

1 Supra, p. 277. 



304 MAKVLAM) AS A I'KOl'i;! HTAUV rUOVINCE 

St. Mury's. and not far from tlic inoulh of the Potomac. In 
llJoO an act was passed for rebuilding and garrisoning that 
fort. The preamble stated that the purpose of the act 
was to guard against any indignity to the lord proprietor 
or any abuse to the people through the insolence and 
pride of ill-minded people trading with the province. The 
act provided that every iive inhabitants of the province 
should furnish and support one man to assist in the work 
of rebuilding. It authorized the governor to press six men 
with victuals and the necessary ammunition into the said 
fort during the time of shipping. It provided that one 
thousand pounds of tobacco should be raised b}^ a poll tax 
for paying a gunner. It directed that for trading with the 
colon}" every English or foreign vessel, having a deck or 
deck flush fore and aft, should pay a duty of one-half 
pound of powder and two pounds of shot, or the equiva- 
lent in value, on every ton burden for the use of the fort 
or an}' other necessary or general uses to be employed as 
the governor should see cause or thiid-c fit. 

In 1661 the above act was superseded by a perpetual 
act that increased the duty per ton to one-half pound of 
powder and three pounds of shot, or the equivalent in 
value, and made it payable to the lord pro2Jrietor and his 
heii's without specifying any use to which it should be 
applied. In order to answer the end mentioned in the 
preamble of the act of I60O, this last act provided that mas- 
ters or commanders of the vessels should, Mithin ten days 
of their arrival within tlie province, give bond of three 
thousand pounds of tobacco to observe all acts and orders 
of the province during their stay therein ; and if any 
such master or commander attempted to strike or punish 
any inhabitant of the province while on board the vessel, 
then such master or commander was to forfeit four thou- 
sand pounds of tobacco. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 305 

The kind of duty mentioned, as well as, in less measure, 
the comparison of these two acts, give some support to the 
claim of the people that tlie duty imposed by the act of 
1661 was intended only for the purpose of fortifying 
ports. Yet, if such was originally the clear intention, 
then the representatives of the people at that time must 
have been unreasonably confident that the lord proprietor 
would never act otherwise than for the best welfare of all 
concerned. _^But however that may be, instead of taking 
powder and shot for arms and ammunition, and some 
money or tobacco for building forts, for more than a 
century the lord proprietor took for his own use a duty 
of fourteen pence per ton."' 

In 1678, when, in response to complaints from the prov- 
ince, the home government inquired of the lord proprie- 
tor about the provision for defence, he replied, "As to 
castles and forts there are none, so that if an enemy should 
land there, he would not find any place wherein to fix 
himself." ^ 

No such reply could give satisfaction to those ignorant 
of the INIaryland coast ; and from the beginning of the 
royal government the governor was instructed from home 
to erect such fortifications in such ports as he and the 
council should think necessary for the security of the 
province ; but this was to be done at the public charge. 
Five years passed before much heed seems to have been 
given to that instruction. Tn 1697, when the governor 
proposed to the lower house that since the province was 
so destitute of fortifications the crown be asked to send 
a frigate to keep cruising in the bay, the lower house 
resolved that there was no necessity for putting the crown 
to such a charge. 2 Finally, two years later, the governor 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1067 to 1687-88, p. 265. 
2L. H. J., May 31, 1097. 



306 MARYLAND AS A ritOl'IlIKTAl: V I'KOVIXCE 

laid liis instruction Ijefore that house. But on this oc- 
casion, also, the members of that bod}' showed no more 
willingness to expend money for sucli a purpose than the 
lord proprietor had formerly shown. In fact, it is dilhcult to 
see how their reply can be so interpreted as not to show the 
people's complaint against the lord proprietor for his past 
neglect with respect to such coast defence was without 
adequate ground. For in that reply it was said : "-This 
Province from one side to the other being so luxuriant 
in navigable rivers and so many capacious harbors and fair 
landings, the land next tlie water being generally low and 
level with no banks to prohibit landings, and the trade and 
shipping of the Province by the convenience of its creeks, 
rivers, and harbors, it does not seem to us a thing practi- 
cable to erect any such fortilications or to restrain ship- 
ping from the usual places of trade and confine it to any 
particular harl)or. And we are conlident that if their 
Lordships, the Lord Connnissioners of Trade and Planta- 
tion, did visibly know this Province, they would concur 
with us and further adjudge that all the revenues of this 
Province were insignificant to the erecting of such desir- 
able fortifications as would defend it or would be any 
considerable security to shipping in any case." ^ With 
this reply the question of coast defence terminated. ^ 

Tlie fortifications erected by the ]Marylanders as a pro- 
tection from the Pennsylvanians, in tlic vicinity of tlie 
disputed border, were never strong. In ItlSl! tlie lunl 
jiroprietor ordered that Fort Christiana, wliiih had for- 
merly been built by the Swedes, sliould be taken possession 
of. Accordingly that fort was soon garrisoned by five 
men.^ The council decided that the expense should be 
defrayed out of the lord proi)rietor\s revenue, l)ut that 

1 L. IT. J., .Tune 30, 1(>00. - However, see .ixpni, p. 91. 

» Proceedings of the Council, 16GC to 1087-88^ p. 485. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 307 

care should be taken to reimburse his Lordship at the 
laying of the next public levy ; and while it does not 
appear tliat the lower house objected to this, nothing 
further appears with respect to the said fort. In the 
following century the brave frontiersman, Thomas Cresap, 
built his block-house near the bank of the Susquehanna 
in latitude forty. But about the year 1736 it was burned 
by the Pennsylvanians, one of its inmates was killed, sev- 
eral were wounded, and Cresap and four others were 
taken prisoners.^ 

In 1081 scouts were employed to range on the frontier 
in order to protect tlie province from the Indians. But 
no forts of much importance were built for such a purpose 
until tlie year of the establishment of the royal govern- 
ment. By that time, however, the northern Indians had 
been so stirred up by the French that the governor and 
council ordered that a line of three forts should be erected 
on what was then the western frontier — one in Charles 
County, one in Anne Arundel County, and one in Balti- 
more County near the falls of the Patapsco. For erecting 
these forts Captain John Addison and Colonel Nicholas 
Greenberry were authorized and empowered to press and 
procure carpenters, ordinary laborers, tools, provisions, and 
other necessaries. They were given assurance from the 
governor and council that toward paying for tlie same an 
allowance would be made at the next public levy. Each 
fort was to be in command of a captain with nine Engl is! i 
soldiers and four Indians who were to range all along the 
line.^ This line of defence may have been quite well 
kept up for one or two decades ; but early in. the eigh- 
teenth century the lower house deemed such an expense 
unnecessary. 

1 C. R., February 17, 1730. 

2 Proceedings of the Council, 1087-88 to 1G93, pp. 4G1, 478. 



308 MARYLAXI) AS A PKOPRIETAUV PROVINCE 

Few other fortificutioiis of any kind were erected on 
the western frontier until the time of the last intercolo- 
nial war, when that frontier had receded far toward the 
northwest corner of tlie province, where Fort Frederick 
and Fort Cumberland were at that time erected. Fort 
Frederick was built at a cost of upwards of <£G000 
out of the appropriation of .£11,000 that was made by 
the Assembly for the defence of the frontier soon after 
Braddock's defeat. It was located on an elevated site 
about one-fourth of a mile from the Ijank of the Potomac 
and about ten miles above the mouth of Conococheague 
creek. Its form was (puidrangular, eacli of its exterior 
lines being -{(iO feet in length. It was strongl}- built, its 
curtains and bastions being faced with a thick stone wall, 
and it contained barracks sufficient for 300 men.? 

Fort Cumberland was about seventy-five miles west of 
Fort Frederick, and therefore separated from the frontier 
settlers of oNIaryland by a trackless wilderness from sixty 
to eighty miles in extent from east to west. It was orig- 
inally built by some of the Ohio Company as a store- 
house for their goods, and was for a time garrisoned by 
Virginia troops. As a fortification it was weak, being a 
stockade and commanded on almost every side by circum- 
jacent hills. Because it was such a weak fort, because it 
was so far beyond the frontier settlements of inhabitants 
under the protection of the government of Maryland, and 
because, as was claimed, the track of the Indians in mak- 
ing their incursions was between Fort Frederick and Fort 
Cumberland, but out of the range of the latter, the low^er 
house refused to burden the people with any expense in 
garrisoning it.^ In the year 1757 that house even recom- 
mended that his ^lajesty's artillery and stores which 

^ McMahon, "An Historical View of the Government of Maryland," 
p. 305. '^ L. II. J., December 1 ">, ITii" ; C. R., August 2J, 17oG. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 309 

were in that fort should be removed to a place of greater 
security. 

With a poorly organized and disciplined militia, with 
a scant supply of arms and ammunition, and with but 
little defence from forts, the lord proprietor and his 
government were all the more at the mercy of the people 
in time of war, the expense of which the lower house might 
agree to on whatever conditions they saw fit to impose. 

The first of such conditions was made as early as the 
year 1642, when by act of assembly the governor and 
council were authorized to press men, vessels, arms, am- 
munition, and provisions at the most usual rates and to 
charge the same upon the inhabitants of the province, pro- 
vided such expense was incurred for the necessary defence 
of the province from invasion by the Indians or other 
enemies, and provided such expense should amount 
in any one year to no more than six thousand pounds of 
tobacco. 

The duration of the above act was limited to a period 
of three years, at the end of which the governor had gone 
to Virginia because of the Claiborne and Ingle rebellion. 
For service in the suppression of that rebellion Gov- 
ernor Calvert, supported by Secretary Lewger, promised 
to pay soldiers out of the lord proprietor's personal estate. 
The rebellion was thereby easily suppressed. ^ But Gov- 
ernor Calvert died soon after, and the lord proprietor 
denied that the governor had had any authority for en- 
gaging his personal estate, as he was said to have done. 
The consequence was that the dispute between lord pro- 
prietor and people over this matter lasted for about three 
years. The lord proprietor refused to stand the cost of 
paying those soldiers except upon terms which the people 
would not accept. Thereupon, on the initiative of the 

* Supra, p. 20. 



310 MAIIVLAM) AS A PltorRlETARY I'ROVINCE 

representatives of the [)e(>ple, from the year .1(350, tlie laws 
of the provinee forbade the levying of any subsidy, aid, 
customs, tax, or imposition upon the freemen of Maryland 
until after their consent in the Assembly had been first 
obtained. Furtliermore, from that same year the laws of 
the province provided that in case the lord proprietor or 
the governor should at any time make war outside of the 
limits of the province without having first obtained the 
consent and approbation of the General Assembly, then 
the freemen of the province shoidd in no way be obliged 
or compelled against their consent to assist with their 
persons or estates in the prosecution of such a war. 
Finally, martial law was not to be at any time exercised 
within the provinee except in camp or garrison. ^ About 
tlie only modihcation that was later made in these im[)or- 
tant restrictions was that which allowed the governor and 
council, in the interval between sessions of the Assembly, 
to levy a sum not exceeding fifty thousand pounds of 
tobacco in any one 3^ear. 

From the restoration of the pro[)rietary government, in 
1658, until the Revolution of 1»)S!) the war power of the 
lord jjroprietor and governor was [)n)bably stronger than 
at any other time. Yet during that period the hostility 
from the Indians and fi-om all other enemies from with- 
out caused so little alai'ui that no important precedents 
with respect to carrying on war were then established. 
After the establishment of the royal government the prov- 
ince was for a long time so little disturbed by enemies 
from without that little further was done toward defining 
the war powers of the government and the people until 
the third intercolonial war. 

At the beginning of that War the Assembly, in response 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1G37-38 to 1(364, p. 302. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 311 

to the request of the home government for assistance, 
passed an act for raising £2562 10s. for that purpose. 

But when it was desired to negotiate at Albany a gen- 
eral treaty between the Indians on the one side and the 
several colonies on the other, the lower house refused to 
incur any expense therefor until after the governor had 
invited that body to name two of the four commissioners 
who were to be sent to participate in the negotiation. 
Even then the representatives of the people not only 
named those commissioners, but secretly gave them 
instructions under nineteen heads, one of which limited 
the value of the presents to be given by Maryland to the 
Indians to £300. It was only by accident that those 
instructions became known to the governor and council. 
But after they had become thus known, the governor told 
the lower house that the prerogative of making peace or 
war was such an acknowledged and undoubted right of 
the crown that neither house of Parliament had ever pre- 
tended to authorize or instruct any minister employed in 
such negotiation. He said that by the charter of Mary- 
land that prerogative had been delegated to the lord pro- 
prietor, and that therefore he could not, consistently with 
his duty and station, commission any person who should 
think himself obliged to observe and pursue any other 
directions than such as he, the governor, should give him. 

When the lower house was first called to account for 
giving such instructions, that body claimed tliat they had 
not been given as directions to be observed in making the 
treaty, but simply that better information might be re- 
ceived concerning the Indians. However, when such an 
excuse had failed to give satisfaction, the same house 
acknowledged that the power of war or peace was in the 
crown ; but at the same time reminded the governor that 
the giving of money and support to such war or peace 



312 M.\i:\LAM) AS A I'i:oi'UIi:tai;v I'i:(>\ ince 

was a privilege of the pe()[)le. Furtheiniore, it pretended 
that the intended meeting with the Indians could not 
properly come under the denomination of war or peace, 
since liie demand of thi' Indians, so far as Maryland was 
concerned, was to be paid for land. But before the dis- 
pute had arisen with respect to these instructions, provi- 
sion had been made for I'aising <£300, and tlie governor, 
not being obliged to connnission those named b}' the lower 
house, connnissioned only such as he thought would follow 
none but his own instructions.^ 

It was during the last intercolonial war that the gov- 
ernor was made most conscious of his weakness or very 
limited war power resulting from the poor militia law and 
from the law which made' it easy for the lower house to 
refuse to meet the expense of any warlike activity that was 
engaged in for any other purpose than to repel an inva- 
sion. In the year 1755 Governor Sharpe wrote : " We 
can scarcely oblige the peo[)le to act in defence of them- 
selves and properties when immediately attacked ; how, 
then, will they obey our orders to leave their business and 
families when they have not the least prospect or ex[)ec- 
tation of receiving a reward for their troubles? "^ Two 
years later, the same governor again w^rote : " It is a 
question whether the militia can l)e compelled to march 
out of this Province. ... I do not believe that any of 
them would march to garrison Fort Loudoun, as they 
would conclude that the Assembly would never allow 
them any pay or provisions while they should remain on 
that service. Indeed, the Assembly has been too back- 
ward in making the men that have at times been ordered 
out on duty a proper allowance. And as most of the men 
of whom the militia is composed depend on their labor for 

1 L. H. J., May 23 to June 1. 1741 : Dnlany Papers. 

2 Sharpens Correspoudenco, Vol. I, p. 221 it scq. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 313 

their daily bread and cannot lose any time without dis- 
tressing their families, one cannot be surprised at their 
being less alert and ready to march than might be ex- 
pected if they were punctually paid."^ 

That same year, after the lower house had passed a 
supply bill for supporting three hundred men on the 
western frontier upon conditions which the other branches 
of the legislature would not accept, Governor Sharpe did 
his best to show how, independent of all aid from the 
lower house, he could provide protection for that frontier. 
He said : " I will make Captain Beall a Major of the 
Militia and oblige as many men to serve under him as 
may be necessary for the defence of Fort Frederick and 
the more immediate protection of the frontier inhabitants. 
This step will make the Assembly sensible that I can, 
even without their assistance or consent, oblige the militia 
to do the duty or service they intend the three hundred 
men for, and that I am on my part resolved to exert the 
power with which I am to their mortification invested. 
It is true I cannot instantly punish every person that shall 
refuse to march, but I can order him to be prosecuted 
before the Judges of our Supreme Court, and I am 
thoroughly satisfied they will not suffer such a one to 
escape with impunity. And though I have no power to 
levy money without the consent of Assembly to pay any 
part of the militia that shall march in obedience to my 
orders, yet I can impress as much j)rovisions or other 
necessaries for their use as they stand in need of."^ 

In pursuit of this resolution, after some of the militia 
had refused to march, Sharpe commanded the captain of 
each of two companies to certify to the justices the names 
of all those members of his coiupany that so refused, 
and to proceed without delay to Fort Frederick with such 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 30. 2 Jiiui^ p. 103. 



314 I^lAKVLANl) AS A IMtOI'RIETAUV I'KOVIN'CE 

officers and men as should be willing to march, though 
there should be no more than ten or even a less number 
in each company. As a result of such orders four com- 
panies were marched to the western frontier, even though 
some members of the lower house did all they could to 
encoui'age those companies to be disobedient. 

But this success of the governor was not lasting, and in 
the end it served to arouse a successful opposition. For 
at the next meeting of the Assembly the lower house, by 
a vote of thirty-two to five, sent a remonstrance to the 
governor complaining that he had no right to compel the 
militia to march except to repel an actual invasion. After 
the governor's reply to that remonstrance was regarded 
as unsatisfactory, the same body sent a second remon- 
strance in which they intimated that the militia law was 
not in force, and in which they held that tlie conditions 
on the frontier were quite dilTiTciit from what llicv lia<l 
been two years before, when at least twenty-six of the in- 
habitants there had been killed or taken prisoners by the 
enemy. Then lliis second remonstrance continued : "We 
are really at a loss to conceive what could induce your 
Excellency to be of the o[)inioii that you had a power 
under that law to march the militia of this Province when- 
ever and wheresoever you pleased, and that in order to 
prevent as well as to repel an invasion. Hut surely there 
are no words in that law that can give you that authorit}', 
nor can anytiiing be farther from the intent and design 
of it ; for such an authority would put it in the power of 
the Governor of this Province,- whenever he found himself 
opposed in any views or designs that he might have tend- 
ing to destroy the liberties of the i)cople, to compel the 
whole militia of the Province at any time when he might 
suggest danger to march to any part of the Pi-ovinee he 
pleased, and kee[) them there until the Representatives 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 315 

had complied with all his demands, let them be never so 
extravagant or injurious to the people. Such a power we 
conceive is not given nor could ever have been intended 
to have been given by any men in their senses. . . . We 
are apprehensive unprejudiced persons may infer that 
those who advised your Excellency to take that measure 
intended under the specious pretence of affording present 
protection to a few, by degrees to introduce an arbitrary 
power, the exercise of which must in the end inevitably 
enslave the whole." ^ 

A few days later the house passed several resolutions, 
among which were the following : "-Resolved unanimously 
that it is the undoubted right and indispensable duty of 
the Representatives of the Freemen of this Province in 
Assembly convened to inquire into, represent, and remon- 
strate against every measure in the Administration or 
exercise of executive powers of Government within this 
Province which in tlieir opinion may tend to affect the 
Lives, Liberties, or Properties of the People in any 
manner not clearly warranted by the known laws or cus- 
toms thereof.'' 

" Resolved that no person is punishable for obstinately 
refusing to appear and serve in arms for the necessary 
defence of this Province by virtue of that clause of the 
act for Ordering and Regulating the Militia of this Prov- 
ince for the better defence and security thereof (admitting 
it were in force), which vests a power in the Justices of 
the Provincial Court to fine and imprison after a procedure 
according to the due course of Law and conviction of such 
obstinate refusal and disobedience as aforesaid except upon 
a foreign invasion." 

" Resolved that agreeable to a reasonable construction 
of the said act there was not a foreign invasion of this 

1 L. II. J., April 15, 1758. 



31G MAKVLAM) AS A IMtOl'KI KTA It V I'KOVINCE 

Province in December last, wlien liis Excellency the (iov- 
ernor, with the advice of his Council, ordcriMl the Coni- 
panit's of Militia of Qneen Anne's and Kent Counties to 
march to the western frontier, nor was there one when 
the Companies were ordered out from Calvert and Cecil 
Counties in March last." 

" Resolved that the Governor of this Province setting 
up an autlujrity under the act aforesaid, w ith the advice 
of the Council, to march the good people of this Province 
to the frontiers thereof whenever he and they may be- 
apprehensive of a foreign invasion, is not warranted by 
the act; and that if such a power should be exercised, the 
people might be enslaved by being marched as often to 
and compelled to remain as long on the frontiers as the 
Governor and his Council might think tit, while their 
helpless families were perishing at home.'" ' 

What the governor felt to be the force of these resolu- 
tions was seen a few months \dtvv when (icncral Forbes 
was anxious that Fort Cumberland should be garrisoned 
with Maryland militia for three or four weeks in order 
that all the Virginia troops might be drawn from that 
post to strengthen the rear of his army. For upon that 
occasion Governor Sharpe wrote to Pitt as follows : "• As 
our Assembly, when they met last, made some resolves 
declaring our militia law to be obsolete or not in force, 
and denying that I have any authority or right with the 
advice of the Council to march any of the militia, even if 
our law was in force, unless in case of an actual invasion, 
or, as they construe that ex[)ression, unless a very large 
body of the enemy was actually in the heart of the Prov- 
ince, T have told General Forbes that I am afraid no more 
of the militia would be prevailed u[)on to come thus far if 
I was to attempt to carry them to Fort Cumberland."^ 

i L. II. J. , May 8, 1758. ^ Sbarpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 249 et seq. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 317 

A little later he again wrote, " I hope General Forbes 
does not depend on the militia of this Province to garri- 
son Fort Cumberland ; if he does, he will most certainly 
be disappointed, for I am satisfied it will not be in my 
power to prevail on a single company to march thither." 
The governor's power over the militia was, therefore, at 
last reduced to little more than a shadow. 

In most of the money or supply bills framed for carry- 
ing on this last war, the lower house not only insisted on 
directing how the province of Maryland should be de- 
fended, but in such bills that body showed much less zeal 
in giving aid to the common cause than it did in limiting 
the power of the governor, in taxing the great offices and 
the lord proprietor's private property, in appropriating 
for public purposes certain revenues which the proprietor 
claimed he had a right to, and, after the rejection of such 
bills, in presenting the home government with charges 
against the proprietary government. Yet such a course 
was the most natural one. For, unlike that of most of 
the other provinces, the boundary of Maryland was so 
defined by charter that there was no prospect of her 
acquiring new territory by conquest. Her people, there- 
fore, except when greatly alarmed about their own safety, 
had no desire to engage in that war or burden themselves 
with any expense for waging it. Because by so doing 
they would seem only to be aiding the other provinces to 
expand their territory. 

The government of Virginia was so thoroughly aroused 
when it learned that the French had seized and im[)ris- 
oned some traders of the Ohio Company, and had reduced 
and pillaged one or two of that company's fortified trading- 
posts, that Colonel Washington was despatched to require 
of the French their immediate evacuation of the invaded 
territory. When the home government had been informed, 



318 MAllYLAND AS A rUOl'IMETAIlY PROVINX'E 

it, througli its secretary of state, the Eurl of Iloldernesse, 
urged each of the several coh)nies to resist any encroach- 
ment of the eneni}' on the Britisli possessions in America. 
But in response to Governor Sharpe's first appeal to the 
Maryland Assembly for aid in this matter, the lower 
house, on November 16, 1753, said : " We are sufficiently 
apprehensive of the great danger of suffering a foreign 
power to encroach upon any part of his Majesty's Domin- 
ions, and we are resolutely determined to repel any hostile 
invasion of the province by any foreign [)ower. . . . 
And whenever the circumstances of our nciglibors require 
it, we will cheerfully contribute as far as we are able 
toward defending them against the attacks of their ene- 
mies ; but as there does not appear at present to be any 
pressing occasion for imposing a tax upon the people for 
these purposes, we hope our unwillingness to do it at this 
time will be ascribed to the real motives of our conduct, a 
prudent care and regard to the interests of our "Constitu- 
ents [rather] than [to] any disinclination to the service 
recommended." 

Washington returned from his mission less than three 
niontlis later ; and it was stated in the Mart/hoid Guzette 
of February H, 1754, that he had reported that the French 
had built several forts near the Ohio ; that each of tliose 
forts was garrisoned by about five hundred men, chieily 
French, with twelve mounted cannon ; that great num- 
bers of other Frenchmen and Indians \vere said to be 
close at hand ; and that the commander at one of those 
forts had said he had instructions from the king of France 
to advance farther and fight those who should oppose. 
i)y tliis time, therefore, war seemed inevitable. The 
Maryland Assembly, in response to the governor's call, 
met again on the twenty-sixth day of February. On that 
day the governor endeavored to show the representatives 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 319 

of the people that there was cause for ahirm. He asked 
that Virginia be assisted in the campaign which she was 
about to undertake. He laid before both houses a written 
appeal from the governor of that province, and he spoke 
of the need of money for making a present to the Indians 
of the Six Nations, when, in June, the general conference 
should be held with them at Albany. But on the third 
day of their meeting the lower house unanimously re- 
solved that no money should be raised in response to the 
appeal from the governor of Virginia ; and, in accordance 
with that resolution, the members of that body sent a 
message to their own governor, saying : "• We are fully 
convinced that our own security is connected with the 
safety of our neighbors, and tliat in case of an attack we 
ought mutually to assist and support each other. But as 
it does not appear to us that an invasion or hostile attempt 
has been made against this or any other of his Majesty's 
colonies, we do not think it necessary to make any provi- 
sion for an armed force, which must inevitably load us 
with expense." 

For making a present to the Indians, that house was 
somewhat more willing to raise money. It passed a bill 
raising =£300 for a present and X200 for defraying the 
expense of the commission. Yet in doing so it appro- 
priated the money arising on licenses to ordinary keepers 
as well as on those to hawkers and pedlers. The lord 
proprietor still claimed the right to all such money for his 
private use ; and although ever since the last intercolonial 
war he had permitted the license money from ordinaries 
to be applied to public purposes, that arising on licenses 
to hawkers and pedlers had never yet been so applied. 
Under these circumstances the upper house amended the 
bill so as to leave out the part relating to hawkers and 
pedlers and to mortgage the license money from ordinaries 



320 MARYLAND AS A IMK )Pi; I KTAKV PROVINCE 

for the whole £500. But to this the lower house would not 
agree, and after that body had passed four resolutions to 
justify its conduct in the eyes of the people, the session 
ended without liaving made provision for the raising of 
any money whatever. 

At the same time the hostilities of the French and their 
Indian allies were becoming more alarming. Governor 
Sharpe soon met the Assembly again, and in his opening 
address, on the eighth day of May, said, " I am very 
much concerned that the great progress, the vast j)repara- 
tions, and the avowed designs of our common enemy, 
whose encroachments and depredations on his Majesty's 
territories occasioned our last meeting, have necessitated 
the neighboring governments to repeat again most ear- 
nestly their solicitations for us to engage and unite with 
them in supporting his .Majesty's just and right preten- 
sions to these his American Dominions, at this time at- 
tacked and invaded." He also spoke again of the necessity 
of com[)lying with his Majesty's pleasure, signilied by the 
board of trade, concerning a i)resent to the Six Nations. 
Six days after the delivery of this address the lower house 
unanimously resolved that money be raised for making 
a present to the Six Nations and for assisting Virginia, 
whit'h was now regarded l^y that body as attacki'd and 
invaded. 

To agree upon the Ava3's and means of raising tlie neces- 
sary money was, liowever, yet to l)e a dillicult task. The 
lower house decided that a tax of five shilliufjs should be 
levied on each wheel of a coach, chair, chaise, or chariot, 
that a light tax should be levied on hn\suits, that twi'Uty 
slnllings should be added to the price of an ordinary license, 
that the duty on convicts sliould be increased by twenty 
shillings, the duty on indented seivants by five shillings, 
and the duty on negro slaves by ten shillings per poll. It 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 321 

was also again decided that the annual license sold for £3 to 
every hawker or pedler shonld be appropriated to this end. 
Fnrthermore, when the motion was put to tax every lucra- 
tive oilice, it was carried by a vote of twenty-eight to twenty- 
three ; and in accordance with that vote it was decided that 
an annual graduated tax should be levied on offices as 
follows : on that of secretary, £5 ; of commissary general, 
.£5; on two judges of the land office, £5 ; five naval officers, 
£10 ; fourteen county clerks, £14 ; examiner general, £1 ; 
and fourteen county surveyors, £7. Having thus decided 
upon the ways and means, the lower house quickly passed 
the bill for raising £500 currency for a present to the Six 
Nations, £150 currency to defray the expense of the com- 
mission, and £3000 currency for assistance to the Vir- 
ginians. The upper house objected to the appropriation 
of the hawkers' and pedlers' license money and to the tax 
on officers. A conference was held. The conferees from 
the lower house agreed to give up the tax on officers, 
but they would not give up the hawkers' and pedlers' 
license money, and the bill was lost. Before the close of 
the session, however, the two houses passed an ordinance 
for taking out of the treasurers' hands £500 currency for 
a present to the Indians and £150 for defraying the 
expense of the commission. 

Without the much needed assistance from Maryland and 
with only three hundred men. Colonel Washington set out 
for the invaded territory. Upon engaging with the enemy, 
he and his men were outnumbered three to one. Thirty 
of his men were killed, seventy were wounded, and he 
was forced to retreat. Having received an account of 
this repulse as well as the news that the French had 
erected Fort Duquesne, — a dangerous menace to the 
frontier settlements of both Virginia and Maryland, — 
Governor Sharpe called the Assembly to meet on the 



322 MAUVLANl) AS A l'i:(.)I'i:iETAUV J'UOVINCE 

seventeenth day of Jul}', and in liis opening address said : 
"The (k'signs of the French ninst now Ix- evich-nt to every 
-one. They liave openly and in viohition of all treaties 
invaded his Majesty's territories and connnitted the most 
violent acts of hostility by attacking and entirely defeating 
the Virginia troops under Colonel Washington." This 
time, on the opening day of the session, the lower house 
voted to raise .£6000 currency. In considering the ways 
and means it was resolved to tax carriage wheels, to 
increase the price of ordinary licenses, to increase the 
duty on coirv-icts, indented servants, and negro slaves, 
and to apjM'opriate the proceeds of the sale of licenses to 
hawkers and pcdlcrs just as was provided in the hill of the 
preceding session ; but instead of the tax on lawsuits and 
on officers, it was decided to levy a duty of twopence per 
gallon on Madeira wine. Finally the bill, as it passed 
the lower house, left the governor free to appl}^ the whole 
.£(3000 in any way he should think proper for the assist- 
ance of the Virginians and for the relief and support of 
the wives and children of such Indian allies as should put 
themselves under the protection of the government of 
Maryland. The upper house passed this bill without an 
amendment, it became a law, and with a part of the money 
thus provided the governor caused two companies of ]\Iary- 
land tro()2)s to be eidisted and then sent them against the 
French. 

In Noveml)er of this year Governor Sharpe received a 
royal commission appointing him connnander of all the 
colonial troops. IIo[)ing that the lionor thus bestowed upon 
him by the crown would give him greater influence with the 
Assembly, he, on the twelfth day of December, met that 
body in its fourth session of that year. But in response 
to his appeal for further supi)lies, the lower house did no 
more than to pass a bill for raising j£7000 by continuing 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 323 

the same taxes and duties tliat had been levied for raisinof 
the £6000 and for continuing the appropriation of the 
license money to the same end. As the governor had 
recentl)^ received an instruction from the lord proprietor 
forbidding him to pass another bill which appropriated 
that license money for public uses, the provisions of the 
new bill relating both to licenses of ordinaries and to 
hawkers' and pedlers' licenses could not be accepted.^ 
Thus the instruction from the lord proprietor was more 
than an offset to the commission from the crown, and the 
session ended without anything having been accomplished. 

The next session l^egan February 22, 1755, only a few 
days after notice had been received of General Braddock's 
arrival in Virginia. On tlie twenty-sixth day of the same 
month the lower house voted to raise £10,000 by no other 
plan than that in the bill of the last session, a motion to 
raise it by a poll tax of Is. 6d. being lost by thirty -six 
votes to ten. So, again, no supplies were raised. But 
after the failure of its bill the lower house passed several 
resolutions, among which was the following, " Resolved, 
that the fines arising on ordinary licenses are and always 
have been the undoubted right of the country ; that the 
Lord Proprietary by his prerogative can have no right to 
impose or levy by w^ay of fine, tax, or duty any sum of 
money on any person whatsoever, or take to himself any 
such fine, tax, or duty imposed by any law of this prov- 
ince which now is [expired] or hereafter may expire without 
the consent of the representatives in general assembly."' ^ 

Furthermore, that house at this time addressed the gov- 
ernor as follows, " The appropriation of the ordinary 
license fines (which has at last appeared to be the great 
obstacle to our repeated generous grants) we are so firmly 
of opinion is the undoubted right of the country that 
1 Gilmore Tapers. 2 l. h. J., March 25, 1755. 



324 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY I'ROVINCE 

notliing will ever induce us to give it up or do auytliing 
wliicli uui}' weaken that right." 

Before the Assembly was again called General Brad- 
dock had held a conference at Alexandria Avil h the sev- 
eral provincial governors, and a plan of operations had 
there been agreed upon. After that, however, on June 
23, 1755, the next session was op)ened. By this time 
Braddock was approaching the enemy. The governor, in 
his opening address, stated tliat the general purposed first 
to ix'duce Fort Du(]uesne and expel the French from the 
invaded territory, and then to repair the old fort or con- 
struct another place of defence as a barrier against any 
future encroachments. ]\Ioreover, the governor told how 
it had been fiutlier planned to guard lliat place of defence 
\\ith provincial troops, and to ask Maryland and the two 
neighboring provinces to support and victual them. Two 
days after this plan had been submitted, the lower house 
inquired of the governor if the amount each of the three 
provinces was expected to raise had been agreed upon at 
Alexandria. If it had been, the}' wished to know what those 
amounts were. To this inquiry the reply was that noth- 
ing of the kind had been entered upon as it was appre- 
hended that such might not be agreeable to the respective 
assemblies. At the same time, however, the governor 
stated that all those present at the Alexandria meeting 
had agreed that the three provinces ought to be at the 
expense of construdiiig and sui)itoi'ting the place of de- 
fence ; and he thought it was necessary for ^Maryland 
to i-aise at least £4000 at the present juncture. The day 
on wliicli this reply was received the lower house voted 
to raise .£5000 for the jturpose mentioned l)y the gov- 
enu)r ; but the very next step which that l)ody took was 
to resolve, by a vote of thii'ty-six to four, that the license 
money from ordinaries, amounting to about £045 a year, 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 325 

should be one of the sources from which to raise the sum 
named. The result was that the two houses could not 
agree upon a supply bill for assisting in the execution 
of the proposed plan. 

Nevertheless, as obstacles to harmony between the 
several branches of the legislature became greater, danger 
drew nearer. Within one week from the day this session 
was opened, the news came that the enemy had killed 
some of the inhabitants on the frontier of the province, 
that others had been taken prisoners, and that because of 
the alarm many families had deserted their habitations 
and fled eastward for protection. Upon receiving this 
news the governor asked that provision be made for 
raising and supporting one hundred men as rangers, and 
for defraying the expense of establishing and maintaining 
communication between Annapolis and the frontier. The 
lower house promptly responded by voting to make suit- 
able provision for paying and maintaining eighty men, 
including officers to range on the frontiers for four months 
and to defray the reasonable expense of communication 
between Annapolis and Will's Creek for the same length 
of time. The bill which tliat body passed for this pur- 
pose provided for raising =£2000. But it was to be raised 
l)y a duty on wine, rum, brandy, and other spirits, and by 
another increase, of five shillings per poll, in the duty on 
convicts. And this was the beginning of a controversy 
with respect to the convict duty that was continued in 
several succeeding sessions, the governor and the upper 
house objecting because the increase in the dut}' on that 
class of servants over that of others was in conflict with 
acts of parliament authorizing their importation. A 
still more serious objection to this bill was found in the 
clause which directed that there should be no impress- 
ment of any freeholder or housekeeper ; and it must have 



326 MAi:VLANl) AS A IMM HMtlETAKV I'KOVINTE 

been this clause in partieiilar which caused the ui)i)er 
house, in refusing to pass the bill, to say, " In our appre- 
hension it is framed in such a manner that it would be 
very difficult, if not impossible, to be carried into execu- 
tion so as to answer the purpose proposed by it." 

Some explanation of the failure of the lower house to 
frame less objectionable sup[)ly bills at this pressing time 
of need is to be found in the bitter eiuuity of its mem- 
bers toward Catholics. The feeling of Protestants 
against Catholics had been strong ever since the eve of 
the Revolution of lOSi*. Tiie present war intensilied that 
feeling. The French were Catholics, and from this fact 
many Maryland Protestants seem to have reasoned that 
Maryland Catholics were allies or at least dangerous sym- 
pathizers of the invading enemy. In the year 1751 the 
lower house, in an address to the governor, had prayed 
that his Excellency would "■ put into all places of trust 
and i)rortt none but faithful Protestant subjects, known 
as such by their religious and civil principles." That' 
same year the two houses were engaged in a warm dispute 
over a law to prevent the growth of popery. 

Again, the report of the committee on grievances which 
was submitted June 17, 1752 contained the following 
charges: "Popish Priests or .Icsuits take grants of land 
from the Lord Proprietary, as well as deeds from others 
in their own names, whereon they build public mass 
houses, plantations, seminaries, for the public exercise of 
their functions ; of which mass houses, seminaries, or 
sects of Jesuits there are six or more." 

" Many Papists openly send children to St. Omer's and 
otlier Popish seminaries, out of the King's obedience, 
many of whom return to this province propagating tlieir 
doctrines without control." 

"Henry Darnall, tlic Attorney General, was brought 



MILITARY AFFx\IRS 327 

up and educated at St. Ouier's and professed the Popish 
religion until lie began the practice of law and of his tak- 
ing the oaths to the government." 

" John Darnall, the Attorney General's brother, one of 
the Judges of the Provincial Court, Clerk of Frederick 
County, Deputy Commissary and Receiver General, was 
bred out of his Majesty's obedience and was never known 
to attend a Protestant church. His wife is a Papist and 
he educates his children as Papists. Three more pro- 
vincial Judges are married to Papists, two of whom exe- 
cute tlie most considerable offices in the government. 
Most of the Receivers of Quit- Rents in the seven coun- 
ties of the Western Shore are Papists." 

" Many of the most influential Papists, especially 
Charles Carroll, do what they can to get members elected 
for the Lower House whom they think will best serve 
their purposes."^ 

Early in the year 1754, at the time when the lower 
house was refusing to give assistance to the Virginians, 
its committee on grievances was expressing the fear that 
the growth of popery within the province and the large 
possessions of the Jesuits in the vicinity of the French 
must endanger the peace of the province and the repose 
of all his Majesty's colonies on the American continent. 
Two months later, in the second session for that year, 
the same committee reported that several papists of St. 
Mary's County had made great opposition to the eidist- 
ment of men who were to march to the Ohio. And acting 
upon this report, while the two houses were unable to 
agree upon a supply bill, the lower house passed a bill, 
entitled "an act for the Security of his Majesty's Domin- 
ions and to prevent the Growth of Popery in tliis Prov- 
ince," which directed that manor lands belonging to 
1 L. II. J., June 17, 1752. 



328 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINX'E 

Papists should Ix.' taken from their owners and sohl by 
coniniissioners to be appointed by the act, and that the 
governor and council should ap[)ly the proceeds of such 
sales toward defending tlie province from the encroach- 
ments of the French.^ Again, in November of this same 
year, some freemen of Prince George's County instructed 
tlieir delegates " to promote with all their weight and 
influence a law to dispossess the Jesuits of those large 
landed estates which render them formidable to his 
Majesty's good Protestant subjects, to exclude Papists 
from places of trusts and profit, and to prevent them from 
sending their childreu to foreign Popish seminaries for 
education."^ 

So, now, in this second session of the Assembly of the 
year 1755, when the French or their Indian allies were 
killing people on the frontiers, the meml)ers of tlie lower 
house became bold and open in charging that the lord 
proprietor and his governor were, to an alarming extent, 
showing favoritism to the Catholics. Thus, at this session, 
the members of that body made angry complaint because 
such men as Henry Darnall and John Darnall had not been 
removed from office, and because their attempts to get a law 
for the security of Protestants had been defeated. They 
were enraged because, as they charged, the governor had 
pardoned a man — who was under sentence of death for 
an atrocious crime — upon his becoming a proselyte to 
the pofjish religion ; and because, as the}' charged, two 
otiier popish delin([uents, under prosecution for crimes of 
the most dangerous nature and tendency, had obtained a 
nolle prosequi. Although Governor Sharpe showed that 
their charges had little or no foundation, he was unable, 
under these various circumstances, to prevail upon that 

1 L. H. J., May .30, 1754. 

2 Maryland Gazette, November 28, 17.54. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 329 

house to pass a su})ply bill which did not seek to tie his 
hands to such an extent as to defeat its purpose. 

After all his efforts along this line had proved to be 
futile, the governor prorogued the Assembly on the eighth 
day of July. Less than two weeks later came the news 
of Braddock's defeat and death. Thereupon, Governor 
Sharpe, assisted by several small companies of volunteers, 
did his best to defend the frontier. But in spite of his 
best efforts such great consternation arose among the in- 
habitants of that region that large districts, once inhabited, 
were deserted ; and the freemen of Frederick County 
petitioned the Assembly to do something for their protec- 
tion. The Assembly, however, was not convened again 
until after a council of war had been held at New York, 
where a plan of operations was concerted, and the quota 
of supplies expected from each province was fixed. But 
these matters having been attended to, the next session 
began February 23, 1756. From February 26 to March 3 
the lower house sat as a committee of the whole to con- 
sider appropriations, ways and means, and then voted to 
raise ^40,000, of which ,£11,000 was to be applied toward 
constructing and garrisoning a fort and not more than 
four block-houses on the frontier, ,£775 for the more im- 
mediate protection of that frontier, X3000 toward secur- 
ing the alliance of the southern Indians, £10,000 toward 
carrying on an expedition to the westward in conjunction 
with the other governments, and £15,000 toward carry- 
ing on the plan of operations to the northward. The 
whole amount was to be raised by an excise and an import 
duty on wine, rum, brandy, and other spirits, by an 
import duty on horses, pitch, turpentine, and tar, by an 
additional duty on convicts and negro slaves, by a tax on 
billiard tables, bachelors, and certain legal proceedings, 
by a tax of one shilling per hundred acres on land if 



330 MAUVLAND AS A I'ltoIMilETAIlY IMinVINCE 

owned by Protestants, but two sliillinccs for the same iinni- 
ber of acres if owned by Catholics, and by the continued ap- 
plication of the license money from ordinaries to this [)ublic 
end. The first and the second l)ills framed on the aljove 
bases and sent to the ui)per house were rejected. But 
after that house had pointed out its objections to the 
third, a conference was lield. During the conference the 
lower house agreed to strike out the e.lause relating to 
convicts, made some concessions with respect to taxing 
the proprietor's lands and the appointment of connnis- 
sioners who were to be intrusted with the application of 
the money. So, finally, the bill became a law after the 
Asscnd)ly had been in session for more than ten weeks. 
Even then its military provisions such as related to the 
place of constructing forts, su[)porting garrisons, and 
forming regiments and companies tied the hands of the 
governor much more closely than had formerly been per- 
mitted. 

From this time until the close of the war, nearly seven 
years later, not another supply bill passed the Maryland 
Assembly. In September, 1757, the governor informed 
that Assembly that the ^40,000 as well as the =£6000 were 
nearly expended, and asked for further support of the 
men on the frontier and for a provision for receiving such 
of his Majesty's forces as should be sent to Maryland for 
winter quarters. The session continued from Se]>tem- 
ber 28 initil l)eeeinl)er 1(1, and it was a most stormy one. 
The lower house complained of the hardships imposed 
on the people by the recruiting olilicers. It charged the 
troops on the frontier with neglect of duly. It especially 
censured the governor for employing any of those troops 
to garrison Fort Cuml)erland, alleging that such was con- 
trary to the plain intention of the law by which they had 
been raised. It even found fault with the size of Fort 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 331 

Frederick, saying that it was to be apprehended that the 
fort was so large that in case of an attack it could not be 
defended without more men than the province could sup- 
port merely to maintain a fortification. Moreover, that 
body became arrogant and unduly suspicious in its ex- 
amination of accounts relating to the expenditure of the 
£6000 that had been granted in the year 1754. In mak- 
ing the examination it claimed the right to call the 
governor's secretary before its bar and to oblige him to 
answer any question relating to those accounts which it 
saw fit to ask. When the secretary refused to answer 
some of the questions on the ground that they too much 
concerned the governor, and then failed to attend the house 
again as requested, a warrant was issued to the sergeant- 
at-arms for his arrest. In attempting to execute the 
warrant the sergeant was obliged to call at the governor's 
house ; and in doing so the governor interfered and for- 
bade the arrest. The lower house then made a direct 
attack on the governor, charging him with an unwar- 
ranted exercise of power in several instances, and, espe- 
cially, with invading the rights, privileges, and authority 
of the people's representatives. At the same time, also, 
the governor's secretary was basely charged with embez- 
zlement. 

It was while the lower house was thus quarrelling 
with the governor that it passed a bill for defending the 
frontiers, which directed that Fort Cumberland should no 
longer be garrisoned by Maryland troops, that the troops 
in the pay of the province should not exceed three hundred, 
and that they should be not otherwise employed than in 
garrisoning Fort Frederick and in ranging just beyond 
the western frontier settlements. As there had but re- 
cently been more killing on that frontier, and as the 
means by which the money was to be raised did not seem 



382 MARYLAND AS A rilorillKTAItV PHOVINCE 

to be seriously objectionable, Governor Sliari)e would liave 
favored making the bill a law, had he not feared that the 
limitation of the field in wiiieh the troops were to be 
employed too mueh encroached on the royal prerogative. 
I>iit not wishing to take the responsibility of deciding 
this question, he asked the advice of General Loudoun. 
Wliereupon that officer, who was then commander-in-chief 
of his Majesty's forces in America, wrote in reply : " As 
you have asked my opinion about passing the bill, if pre- 
sented with such a restriction, I am clearly of opinion 
that as things are situated at present in America I should 
be very cautious of passing any bill where there is a direct 
infringement of the King's prerogative, whicli I think 
this is. And I am still more of opinion tiiat it would be 
right at present, as you are of opinion, that such a step 
would have a good effect; besides, it will in some degree 
prevent the disease from spreading. . . . Your assembly 
in this case have taken a step that tends to subvert all 
government, and at once throw off all submission to the 
Government of the Mother Country. I need not say to 
yon how fatal the exam[)le may be, and how likely other 
assemblies are to follow the example if it cannot be 
stopped here till the King's Ministers are informed of the 
situation and have time to a[)[)ly a proper remedy to an 
evil that is of so dangerous a nature."* 

In accordance with this advice the bill was rejected ; 
but what was the linal result of the governor's resolve to 
march militia to do the service for which those three 
hundred troops were intended has already been seen. 
Then, too, when the governor encouragi-d private subscrip- 
tions as a means of providing protection for the frontiers, 
he again met with opposition from members of the lower 
house, who sought to persuade the people that if the gov- 
ernor should raise money by such methods, they nuist not 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 833 

hope to have any more assemblies convened, but that 
they woukl have to obey orders in council and ordinances 
instead of laws made with the consent of their representa- 
tives. In this manner thwarted again in his untiring 
efforts, the governor murmured, saying, " Thus may these 
Tribunes impose on the weak minds of the people, and 
while they delude them with the empty sound of Liberty 
and Privilege most effectually contribute to their destruc- 
tion and the loss of his Majesty's Dominions."^ 

In the 3^ear 1758 General Forbes set out on his expe- 
dition against Fort Duquesne. As if for aid in this 
expedition, the lower house passed a bill — the third of 
like kind during the same year — for raising one thousand 
men and X'4:5,000 to pay them. But from several clauses 
in that bill one is inclined to infer that the real intention 
of the house which passed it was to embarrass the govern- 
ment of the province rather than to give assistance to 
General Forbes. The upper house rejected it because it 
provided for giving to the lower house the sole right of 
nominating the commissioners to whom the money was 
to be intrusted and by whom paid out ; because it pro- 
vided for a double tax on land held by Catholics ; 
because the tax which it proposed to impose on offices 
was much too heavy ; because it proposed to tax the 
proprietor's quit-rents and his uncultivated as well as his 
cultivated lands ; ^ and because of no less than ten minor 
objections.. 

In claiming the sole right of nominating commissioners 
the lower house was putting itself on an equality with the 
House of Commons. In endeavoring to impose a tax on 
the proprietor's lands and quit-rents, on offices, and a 
double tax on the land of Catholics, that house was but 
seeking to give blows to the lord proprietor, his friends, 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 251. ^ Supra, p. 100. 



334 MAl'.YLANI) AS A IMIOIMJIKTA RV PROVINCE 

and dependents. In fiict, there seems to have heen much 
truth in the assertion of Governor Sharpe at this time, 
that the chief men in the lower house were anxious to 
throw everything into confusion, in tlie hope that tlie crown 
would then think it necessary to interfere in some manner 
or other that might be disagreeable to the lord proprietor. 

That their own conduct might not appear without any 
justification, the members of that body at this time passed 
ten resolutions, among which were the following : " Re- 
solved, that the right of nomination of commissioners in 
all bills of this nature being constantly exercised by the 
House of Commons does of course rest in this Mouse; it 
being the undoubted right of the people of this province, 
as far as is consistent with their circumstances and depen- 
dent state, freely to exercise and to enjo}- every liberty 
and privilege that his Majesty's subjects in Great Britain 
have either by themselves or their Representatives a right 
to exercise and enjoy according to the Law and Constitu- 
tion of the Realm." 

" Resolved that as a double tax on Papists and other 
Nonjurors is constantly imposed by the land tax acts in 
the Mother Country, this House think themselves sulh- 
ciently justified in imposing it here, and that considering the 
many valuable possessions both of lands and Negroes held 
by societies of Popish Priests and Jesuits living together 
in a collegiate manner, and the number of Papists and 
other Nonjurors residing in this Province, and the danger 
arising from their known principles which are incompati- 
ble with and destructive of all Protestant establishments, 
it is thought but common prudence to distinguish their 
disaffection by some public discouragement." 

" Resolved that in all grants of aids for his Majesty's 
service and defence and security of this I^rovince it is just 
and reasonable that the Lord Proprietary, who is more 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 335 

nearly and immediately interested than almost any of his 
Tenants, should bear at least an equal proportion with 
them of the taxes necessarily imposed for those purposes, 
and that if his Lordship should desire (which we cannot 
suppose) to be totally exempted from the payment of a 
tax upon so large a part of his revenue as his quit-rents, 
it would discover an inclination to oppress his Tenants by 
loading them with tliat expense which he himself ought 
to bear for the security of his own property, and betray a 
want of zeal and loyalty to his most Gracious Sovereign 
by not cheerfully contributing with the rest of his Subjects 
toward the defence and support of his just rights against 
the encroachments of his most inveterate enemy." 

" Resolved that a tax similar to that imposed by the bill 
upon lucrative offices, employments, and benefices is com- 
monly imposed in E^ngland ; and it is the more reasonable 
and just here as so large a proportion of the produce of 
the people's labor is given by law to the maintenance and 
support of the Officers and Clergy." ^ 

Not long after the passing of the above resolutions an 
article was inserted in the London Chronicle which ex- 
pressed great concern for the success of the expedition 
against Fort Duquesne since it was to receive no aid 
from Maryland, and then stated that the failure of the bill 
had been chiefly duo to the lord proprietor's refusal to allow 
his estate to be taxed. A reply to the above in justifica- 
tion of the lord proprietor drew out another article con- 
taining several queries which were designed to cast 
reflections on the government of Maryland. The last 
of these queries was, " Whether the frequent clashing of 
interest between the Proprietors and people of our Colo- 
nies, which of late have been so prejudicial to his Majest^^'s 
service and the defence of his Dominions, do not at length 

1 L. H. J., May 9, 1758. 



33G MARYLAND AS A PIlOPltlETAllY PROVIN'CE 

make it necessary for this Nation to inquire into tlie 
nature and conduct of these Proprietary Governments and 
put them on a better footing ? " ^ 

The expedition, however, was successful ; and j^et be- 
cause of its success and the capture of Fort Duquesne 
the inhabitants of Maryhmd were still less concerned with 
respect to their own safety. The consequence of this was 
that, although the home government again and again 
pressed the Assembly to raise its quota for the purpose 
of bringing the war to an end, the lower house year after 
year, and sometimes twice in the same year, — nine times 
in all, — framed and passed a bill with the same ol)jection- 
able clauses as that which they passed for giving aid to 
the expedition against Fort Duquesne. 

Three years after that expedition the same house — this 
time in an address to the crown — not only sought to jus- 
tify their course, but even to win the favor of the crown 
with gracious words, and to throw the blame on the lord pro- 
prietor and his government for the failure of Maryland to 
Gfive the aid desired. Thus, in that address, was the fol- 
lowing clause, "• May it please your Majesty to indulge 
us, destitute as we are of the proper means of obtaining 
access to the Tlirone, while we make use of the opportu- 
nity of hvuiibly expressing our concern that this Province 
has during the present just and necessary war contributed 
so little to the service of our late most Gracious Sovereign, 
and our confidence that until a full inquiry be made into 
the causes thereof which we most earnestly desire, and the 
people shall be permitted to raise a support for an Agent 
Avlio may lay all their grievances which they suffer under 
the Government of their Loid Proprietary projicrly before 
your Majesty, you will be most graciously pleased to con- 
tinue that favorable opinion which we hope you have 

1 Portfolio 13, Nos. 23 and 24. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS 337 

hitherto entertained of the Protestant inhabitants of the 
Province of MaryUmd, than whom, permit us, Royal Sir, 
to say your Majesty has not in all your Dominions sub- 
jects more loyal, more hearty well wishers to our present 
happy establishment, or more firmly or affectionately 
attached to your most Sacred Person and Government." ^ 

On the other hand, the lord proprietor, with the hope, 
perhaps, of convincing the representatives of the people 
that they were in the wrong, asked the attorney general, 
Pratt, to give his opinion with respect to the objection- 
able clauses of the bill. In response thereto that officer 
held that the nomination of commissioners belonged to 
both houses conjointly, that a double tax on Catholics 
would be a breach of public faith and tend to subvert the 
very foundation of the Maryland constitution, and that a 
tax on the lord proprietor's uncultivated lands would be 
unreasonable. Then, in general, he said, that the lord pro- 
prietor ought to resist with firmness all unreasonable 
attempts of the lower house to assume to themselves privi- 
leges which the House of Commons enjoyed. " For," he 
continued, " 1 am satisfied neither the Crown nor the Par- 
liament will ever suffer these assemblies to erect them- 
selves into the power and authority of the British House 
of Commons."^ 

But only a short time after these opinions had been laid 
before the lower house. Governor Sharpe stated that he 
was convinced that that body would frame a supply bill 
on the old terms unless the secretary of state sent a letter 
expressing his disapproval of their conduct. And as for 
the inhabitants of the province in general at that time, he 
said in a letter to the lord proprietor, " They seem to be 
very well pleased since they are not burdened with any 
more taxes, and as they do not conceive themselves to be 

1 L. H. J., April 22, 17G1. 2 u, h. J., April 17, 1759. 



338 MARYLAND AS A PRUIMtl I-:TAI; V I'lJOVINCE 

in danger now from the enemy, and are not ambitious for 
acquiring a reputation for zeal and exemplary loyalty, 
they seem to be very indifferent about the event of the 
campaign."^ 

Finally, a letter from the secretary of state, somewhat 
of the nature the governor desired, was sent and laid 
before the lower house. But with respect to it that 
house simply said : " As to the severe reprehension con- 
tained in the Earl of Egremont's letter, which you have 
been pleased to lay before us, it is the particular misfor- 
tune of this Province to be without an Agent at home to 
represent the transactions of their Delegates in their true 
light, owing to the constant refusal of the Upper House 
to pass tlie bills which have been at almost every oppor- 
tunity offered them for the support of a person in that 
character in London. And as that reprehension is so gen- 
eral, we must conclude that our most Gracious Sovereign 
and his ^Ministers have not been fully and truly informed 
of the repeated generous offers of the people heretofore 
made by their Representatives to raise very large supplies 
for his Majesty's service by bills passed for those purposes 
and constantly refused by the Upper House. "^ Thus did 
the people's representative body remain lirm to the end. 

During this last war, therefore, the conditions were' 
especially favorable for fostering the principles of popular 
government. While the lord proprietor's control of his 
government was still further weakened, the course pursued 
by the lower house must have had great weight in causing 
the home government to resolve upon taxing the colonies. 
So that this was a period of great advance from the once 
monarchical Maryland, subject to a greater and a lesser 
king, to the time when she should become first supreme 
over the lesser and then independent of the greater. 

* Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 397. ^L. II. J., March 19, 17()2. 



CHAPTER V 

FINANCE 

"Most of the contests of the ancient commonwealths," 
says Burke, "turned primarily on the election of magis- 
trates, or on the balance of the several orders of the state. 
The question of money was not with them so immediate. 
But in England it was otherwise. On the point of taxes the 
ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been exercised ; 
the greatest spirits have acted and suffered." The ear- 
nestness, the steadfastness, and the force of language with 
which the lower house of the Assembly engaged in so 
many disputes in which property was involved show that 
the importance which the people of Maryland attached to 
money matters was much like that which Burke found it 
to have been in the mother country. The people of Mary- 
land were little subject to the bondage of religious ideas 
handed down from above. The interests which controlled 
their thoughts and actions were industrial and economic ; 
and it was in the dependence of the government upon 
those controlling interests that the people were enabled 
to acquire great political power. 

LThe government was dependent upon contributions 
from the people for military protection, for the pay of the 
civil ofhcers, for the erection of public buildings, for the 
making of other public improvements, for the support of 
schools, and for the support of the established church. 
Those contributions were made in the form of taxes, duties, 
fees, license money, fines, and forfeitures ; and with respect 

339 



340 MARYLAND AS A rnOPIIIKTAlIY PROVINCE 

to every one of tlieni some' important question arose.] 
With respect to taxes and duties, the Assembly, as early 
as the year 1050, passed an act to prohibit the levying of 
either without the consent of the people or their repre- 
sentatives ; however, instead of keeping the government 
subject to annual appropriations, the lower house, during 
the [)eriod of royal government, passed an important reve- 
nue bill without any limit as to its duration. With re- 
spect to fees, the question was whether they were of the 
nature of taxes, and, therefore, whether either the lord 
proprietor or the governor in council, without the consent 
of the lower house, had the right to fix their amount. 
With respect to license money, fines, and forfeitures, the 
question was whether income from such sources belonged 
to the proprietor for his i)rivate use, or whether it should 
be a part of the public revenue.] 

Of taxation there were two forms ; namely, the personal, 
or poll tax, and the property tax ; but the former was 
much the more common. In fact, the latter was used only 
during the government under the Puritan commissioners 
and for raising a part of the sums iianu'd in the two supply 
bills that were passed during the fourth intercolonial war. 
However, from the middle of the eighteenth century the 
lower house was anxious to emplo}' that method in order 
to throw the larger burden on the luxuries of the wealthy, 
in order to oblige the lord proprietor to pay a larger share, 
and in order — by appointing the assessors and collectors 
— to gain a greater control over the laying and collecting 
of taxes, perhaps, again, at the expense of the lord proprie- 
tor and his wealthy dependents. 

The poll tax furnished the means whereby the members 
and the clerks of both houses of Assembly, the justices of 
the provincial court and of the county courts, the clergy, 
and, for a time, the members of the couneil were paid, 



FINANCE 341 

most of the public buildings were erected, other public 
improvements carried on, and, until the fourth inter- 
colonial war, the expense of military operations defrayed. 
Previous to the year 1650 public charges for any of the 
above purposes were assessed upon the taxable inhab- 
itants somewhat in proportion to the value of their 
estates. But, from not later than the year 1(354, the 
value of the estates ceased to be taken into account, and 
the tax became more properly a poll tax. By assessing 
it upon servants and slaves as well as upon freemen, it 
was thought by some that the burden of such a tax con- 
tinued to fall upon those who had to pay it quite nearly 
in proportion to the value of their estates.^ Yet, at the 
time of Bacon's rebellion in Virginia, the complaint arose 
in Maryland that the poor freemen were obliged to pay 
taxes equal with the rich.^ 

For determining what persons should be treated as tax- 
ables, or made subject to the poll tax, there was no law 
until 1654 ; and even then an act of assembly of that 
year merely required that the tax should be imposed upon 
servants — except white women servants — as well as 
upon freemen. That act did not long continue in force, 
and another was not made to take its place until 1674, 
when it was enacted that taxables should include all free- 
men, except priests and ministers, who were sixteen years 
of age and over ; all male servants imported at the age of 
ten years and over, and all slaves whatsoever of the age of 
ten years and over. In the year 1692 the law was so 
changed as to increase the age limit of slaves and imported 
male servants to sixteen years, and to exempt paupers 
from paying the tax. In the year 1715 the law was 
further amended so as to exempt no other clergymen than 

^ Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 100 et seq. 
2 Proceedings of the Council, 1671 to 1681, p. 139. 



342 MAIIVLANI) AS A PIIOIMtlETAItV I'ltOVINCE 

tliose of tlie Cliurcli of England liaviii!^ benefices within 
the province, and so as to direct that the names of shives, 
adjudged by any county courts to be past labor, might be 
stricken off the list. Finally, in the year 1725, it was 
enacted that female mulattoes born of white women and 
all free negro women should be counted as taxables. 

For a time the lists of taxables were prepared under the 
supervision of the slieriffs. IJut in 1()T<» llie council felt 
that tiie lists thus prepared were incomplete, and, as a 
consequence, the constable of each hundred was given 
directions for preparing such a list. From the year 1692 
an act of assembly directed that the constable should, be- 
tween the twentieth day of June and the last day of July, 
re[)air to every house or habitation within his hundred, 
and ascertain of some chief person in the famil}^ the num- 
ber of taxables within the household. After securing this 
information, he was to prepare two lists of all the taxables 
within his hundred, send one to the sheriff of the county, by 
the first day of August, and present the other at the next 
county court to be set up for public inspection. Each 
sheriif was to send a list of the taxal)les for his county to 
the secretary's office by the twentieth day of September. 

A committee on accounts, consisting of two members 
from the up[)er house and four or five members from the 
lower house, examined and either i)assed or rejected pub- 
lic claims. The journal of accounts, as made out by tliis 
committee, had to pass l)otli houses. To the amount in 
the journal when passed, was added whatever sum any act 
or ordinance of assembly directed should be raised by this 
form of tax. An act of assembly was then passed by 
wliicli a committee, consisting of five members of the 
upper house, and one of the four delegates from each 
county, was empowered to meet at Annapolis tlie fourth 
Tuesday in October, then and there pass upon such other 



FINANCE 343 

accounts as had become due, and lay, assess, and apportion 
the public levy. The fiscal year ended the tenth day of 
November. By that day was added to each county's 
apportionment whatever sum the county court levied as 
county and parochial charges. Then the whole, includ- 
ing the forty pounds of tobacco per poll for the clergy as 
well as the fees of officers, was collected by the sheriff on 
a commission of five per cent. 

Next to taxation proper, duties on both imports and 
exports, but especially the export duty on tobacco, were 
an important source of revenue. From the year 1671, by 
an export duty on tobacco the governor was paid his sal- 
ary, the lord proprietor was for a time paid his quit-rents, 
for more than lialf a century a fund was raised for the pur- 
chase of arms and ammunition, from the year 1723 schools 
received some support, and from the year 1732 a paper cur- 
rency was successfully circulated. By both an export and 
an import duty on beef and pork, by an import duty on 
wines and other liquors, on pitch and tar, and on negroes 
and Irish Catholic servants, some further income was 
derived for the support of schools. By several import 
duties, also, some money was raised for his Majesty's 
service during the third and fourth intercolonial wars. 

The several duties were collected by the naval officers, 
paid by them to the treasurers, and applied, according to 
the directions of acts of assembly, by the governor and 
council. But full accounts to the lower house of all re- 
ceipts and expenditures were required, and the same 
were examined by the committee on accounts of that 
body. 

In the year 1766, when the population of the province was 
not far from one hundred and seventy thousand, of whom 
about one-third were blacks, the annual receipts from taxes 
and duties were reported to have been about .£30,000 ster- 



344 MARYLAND AS A I'ROPIlIETAltV PKOVINCE 

ling.i As all taxes and duties were at one time or an- 
other levied by eonsent of their representatives, the people 
ut no time made any serious complaint about their being 
oppressive, except during the twenty years immediately 
preceding the Revolution of 1689, in which time it was 
charged that the lord proprietor exerted an undue control 
over the Assembly. However, even in the eighteenth 
century, some long-continued disputes arose. 

And what is especially deserving of notice is, that the 
principal one of those disputes, the one from which others 
took their rise, was closely involved with the proprietor's 
relation to the province as its territorial lord. That prin- 
ci[)al dispute pertained to a duty for the support of gov- 
ernment, and, from the year 1671 until the year 1733 the 
act of assembly, which imposed that duty, also made an im- 
portant provision with respect to the payment of quit-rents. 
Here, then, it will appear that the territorial relations 
had an inn)ortant bearing on the proi)rictary government.^ 

From 1671 to the Revolution of 1689 the act that im- 
posed twelvepence duty per hogshead on tobacco for the 
support of government during the life of the lord pro- 
prietor, also required that the proprietor during his life- 
time should receive payment for his quit-rents in tobacco 
at twopence per pound. During the period of the royal 
government, the provision with respect to quit-rents con- 
tinued unchanged until the death of the lord proprietor, 
Charles, in 1715 ; while the duty for the su[)port of gov- 
ernment was made perpetual. Tlien, upon the restoration 
of tbe proprietary government, when that part of the old 
law which related to the payment of quit-rents had ex- 
pired, the other part, which had become perpetual, was 
set aside by a temporary act for paying the quit-rents as 
well as for giving a support to the government. The 

1 rortfolio 3, No. 12. 2 Stqn-d, pp. 79-82, 172, 181, 290, 



FINANCE 345 

temporary act was continued by successive revivals until 
the year 17o3. But from ten years before, there had been 
a growing complaint that the provision in that act with 
respect to quit-rents was more favorable to the proprietor 
than to the people. It was, therefore, at last suffered to 
expire ; and then, again, the duty for the support of gov- 
ernment was imposed and collected under the earlier law, 
which, as a perpetual act of 1704, had not been repealed. 
It is, therefore, clear that originally the duty for the sup- 
port of government was given only in return for favorable 
terms on which to pay quit-rents ; that, later, the provi- 
sion for the support of government was given an unlimited 
term of duration, while that with respect to quit-rents 
remained limited ; and that, finally, the people themselves 
rejected tlie temporary provision for the payment of quit- 
rents, and were left with nothing but the perpetual agree- 
ment to pay for the support of government. 

For a time after the expiration of the temporary act, the 
people seem to have submitted rather quietly to the fate 
which the worst of the bargain had brought upon them, 
and only timid objection was raised to the collection of 
the duty as imposed by the law of 1704. But in the year 
1739 the lower house was endeavoring to make a new 
bargain with the proprietor for paying his quit-rents, and 
at the same time that house was raising a grievous com- 
plaint about the oppression the people were subjected to 
from excessive officers' fees. In the attempt to make a 
satisfactory bargain for the payment of the quit-rents, and 
in the attempt to bring about a reduction of fees, the 
lower house seems to have been confronted for the first 
time with the strength which the lord proprietor derived 
from the perpetual law for the support of government. 
The consequence was that it then occurred to a large 
majority in the lower house that they might contend with 



346 MAKVLAM) AS A PROPIil KTA ItY PUOVINCE 

some effect that the law of 1704 was no hjiiger in force, 
on the ground that such a haw, made wlien tlie govern- 
ment of the province was in the crown, could not be con- 
limicd ill I'orcij upon the restoralion of the proprietary 
government. 

In that year, therefore, the lower liouse said to the gov- 
ernor : "We having in llie most candid and serious man- 
ner taken into consideration the money lately raised as a 
duty upon tobacco for the support of his Lordship's Gov- 
ernment, must acknowledge ourselves sensibly concerned 
to find that 12d. sterling per hogshead since September 29, 
1733, has been levied and collected from the people of the 
Province without any law that we know of to warrant the 
same. We have indeed been informed by the several 
Naval Officers that they levy that money by virtue of an 
act of 1704. What light that act hath hitherto appeared 
in to your Excellency we cannot say, but we hope you have 
considered it in the manner we have done. As to the 
several acts made for raising money for the support of 
this (Jovernmeiit at the respective times when the same 
was in the hands of the Pr()[)rietary or immediately in the 
Crown, you will be persuaded that those made in the one 
have never been deemed to extend to the other." ^ In 
that same year, also, as well as in the next, a bill was sent 
to the upper house which contained a provision for con- 
tinuing the usual duty of twelvepence per hogshead ; but 
in that bill only <£1000 were to be given to the governor 
as his salary, the balance to be used for the purchase of 
arms and ammimition, and the duration of the act was to 
be limited to three years. 

From the year 1750 it was a standing resi)lution of the 
same body that the levying of the duty in question was 
not warranted by law, and that if it were so warranted 

iL. II. J., May 30, 1739. 



FINANCE 347 

one-fourth of it ought to be applied, as it was under the 
royal government, toward the purchase of arms and 
ammunition. In the year 1750, also, that house, in an 
address to the lord proprietor, declared they could not 
conceive that by any construction of the act of 1704 the 
lord proprietor could be meant or intended as successor to 
the crown, or that a duty given for the support of the 
royal government could mean or intend the proprietary 
government. And they hoped the lord proprietor would 
no longer continue to levy the said duty or lay the lower 
house under the disagreeable necessity of taking any other 
method of application for redress.^ 

On more than one occasion some attempt was made 
to get a subscription for the support of an agent who 
should bring this matter, as well as that pertaining to the 
fourteen-pence tonnage duty, to a hearing before the king 
in council. 2 But it is not probable that there was any real 
desire to have the case decided by the king in council, 
since the people could hardly have hoped it would be 
decided in their favor. For, during the last year of tlie 
royal government, there was a general revision of the laws 
of the province, and, upon the restoration, all those laws 
were continued in force. Then, too, as under the royal 
government, so, under the proprietary government, the 
governor was really in each case named by the crown. 
There was but this difference in that respect ; namely, 
under the royal government the crown appointed the 
governor during pleasure, only, while under the pro- 
prietary government the crown named the lord pro- 
prietor and his heirs as hereditary governors, giving 
them the privilege of appointing a lieutenant governor to 
administer the government in their stead. Therefore, it 

iL. H. J., June 2, 1750. 

2 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 421 ; Dulany Papers. 



348 MARYLAND AS A PROmiETARY PROVINCE 

was held that, although a law made for a support of the 
lord proprietary could not be extended to a support of 
the crown, it would not follow that a law made for a sup- 
port of the crown could not be extended to a support of 
the lord proprietary. ^ With such reasons for sustaining 
the lord proprietor, at a time when the crown, in the royal 
provinces, was contending against annual api)ropriations 
as the great source of its own weakness, it is not to be sup- 
posed that the lord proprietor would have been subjected 
to such annual appropriations, by the decision of the 
crown as to the law of 1704. 

Nevertheless, although the i)eople had the weak side of 
the case, they made nuich out of it ; and Governor Sharpe 
coiiii)lained that while the lord })ro])i'ictor had a clear, 
inviolable, and indisputable right to the duty, the peremp- 
tory refusal by the proprietor to allow any proposal to 
be heard concerning the appointment of an agent for 
the settlement of the dispute before the king in council 
tended to confirm the people in the belief that their cause 
was just. 2 So the outcome of it was that, although the 
case was never brought to trial, it was an important 
source of strength to the lower house in the vigorous 
endeavor of that body to curtail every other source of 
income to the lord proprietor or his government, such as 
an allowance to the council and its clerk, fees to officers, 
and license money, hues, and forfeitness to the lord 
2)roprietor. 

During the years of the most lively controversy over 
that duty the annual income from it was about £1400 
sterling per annum. It was, in the main, the governor's 
salary. But while the governor was obliged to pay out 
of it £200 toward the salary of Secretary Calvert, the 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 24 et seq. 
^ Ibid., p. 433 ctseq. 



FINANCE 349 

people were further taxed <£80 per annum for the pur- 
pose of paying the governor's house rent. This was not 
all. Not satisfied with their merely paying his rent, the 
people were asked to build a house for him. An appro- 
priation was more than once made for that purpose. But 
the course pursued by Governor Bladen, to prevail upon 
the lower house to make an additional appropriation 
toward the building of that house, was such as to give 
the people one of their most just causes of complaint, and 
thereby added to the force of the attacks on the govern- 
ment. 

As early as the year 1674 Governor Charles Calvert 
offered to locate the seat of government in that county — 
eitlier St. Mary's or Anne Arundel — which should agree 
tobuild for him a convenient dwelling liouse of brick. ^ But 
the house was not built as a result of this offer. During 
the period of royal government and at the time that the 
seat of it was being removed from St. Mary's to Annapo- 
lis, the lower house was urged to grant money for such a 
building. But that body then felt that the people had 
already been put to a great expense in erecting other 
public buildings at the new seat ; and not until 1704 did 
they even so much as propose that the threepence duty 
for the purchase of arms and ammunition should be 
applied to the erection of the structure which the gov- 
ernor desired. As the upper house could not consent to 
such an application of that duty, another attempt to have 
the house built failed. In the last year of the royal gov- 
ernment, while the question, who had a right to the 
income from licenses for ordinaries was provoking a warm 
dispute. Governor Hart proposed that the money from 
that source be applied toward building a governor's house 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1GG6 to 1676, pp. 
371, 377, 378 et seq. 



3')0 MAIIVLAND AS A PUOl'K I F:T A i; V I'KOVIXCK 

on condition tliat iinother sum, equal to twice the aiuount 
of such license money, be appropriated for the same pur- 
pose.^ But as the lower house would not agree to this, 
the governor could do no more than merely set aside the 
license money alone, toward the erection of the huilding 
desired ; and after the restoration of the jiroprietary gov- 
ernment, even that money was otlierwise a})plied. 

Not until the year 1782 did the Assembly ever make 
an appropriation for the l)uilding. It was in that year 
that the act of assembly was passed for issuing £UO,UOO 
in })aper currency, the credit of which was to be sup- 
ported by a duty on tobacco. Out of the <£1>0,000 in bills 
of credit, the governor was to have a sum not exceeding 
X3000, for the purchase of the ground and the building 
of the house. Yet again, a dispute arose over the title to 
the land which was desired for the lot ; and as a conse- 
quence, for another ten years little or no progress was 
made in this matter. 

But in the 3'ear 1742 Ogle was succeeded in his station 
as governor by Thomas IMaden. So hapjiy were the ])eo- 
ple because, for the first time, a man l)orn within thi' prov- 
ince had been made their governor, that, in the very lirst 
year of his administration, the former ai)propriation of 
£3000 was increased to £4000. The act by which this 
new appropriation was made, however, directed that the 
cost of the house and lot should not exceed the £4000. 

Alas, the early popularity of this native-born governor 
soon vanished. The land which he selected for a lot on 
which to build, had once been granted to Thomas Bordley 
and Thomas Larbin. Although the patent for the same 
had been annulled by a (h'cii'e in chancery, Stephen rxud- 
ley, the son of Thomas Hordlev, hail ajipealed the ease. 
Wherefore, after the building iiad begun, Mr. Bordley 

iL. II. J., May ID, 1715. 



FINANCE 351 

gave notice to the lower house that he was determined, 
if necessary, to carry the appeal to the king in council, 
and that if the matter were at last decided in his favor, 
he would claim not only the land but the house. ^ 

The governor was at once asked to give an account of the 
matter. In doing so, he stated that he had looked upon 
the pretended right of Mr. Bordley as insignificant, yet 
in view of extinguishing all claims and pretensions he had 
offered to pay i;200 currency, which was Bordley 's own 
price. He further stated that after the agreement had 
been made, he had let the contract for tlie building, 
and the work had begun, before the deed had been 
drawn ; that then Bordley was so unreasonable with 
respect to the deed that they could not agree ; but that 
he, on his part, would agree to any deed of which the 
lower house should approve. The disagreement with 
respect to the deed was that while the governor insisted 
that the land should be warranted against Stephen Bordley 
and all heirs claiming under him or his father, Mr. Bordley 
insisted that it should be warranted only against himself 
and his heirs. '^ The lower house was satisfied with the 
terms desired by Mr. Bordley ; and this controversy was 
settled, somewhat to the chagrin of the governor. 

But that incompetent officer was about to undergo a 
far more severe trial, and the lower house was about to be 
confronted with what had the appearance of another de- 
vice for increasing the burden of taxation upon the people 
without the free choice of their representatives. Shortly 
after the question about the deed was disposed of, the 
governor acquainted the lower house that, according to 
his estimate, £2000 over and above what had been appro- 
priated would yet be needed to complete the house. ^ This 

1 L. H. J., May 4, 1744. 2 j^^^vz., May 8, 1744. 

3L. H. J., May 16, 1744. 



352 MARYLAND AS A rUOI'KIETAn V riJOVIXCE 

was vexatious intelligence to those to whom it was given, 
and they asked to be excused from giving the additional 
sum, saying that although the house might not be so or- 
namental as desired, yet they thought that with prudent 
management it miglit be finished, or nearly so, with the 
sum already provided. After he had been refused the 
additional <£2000, the governor asked for oidy £800 or 
XOOO, — a sum which he thought l)arely sullicient to en- 
close tlie building and thereby save it from ruin. But, by 
a vote of twenty-eight to sixteen, the lower liouse declined 
to make any further provision that the upper house could 
accept. Neither would they do anything to make good to 
the governor about X900, which he had expended of his 
own. 

In the year IToO, when Ogle was again governor, the 
lower house was urged to take action toward saving the 
building and toward paying Bladen's claim. But that 
body resolved not to agree to burden the countr}^ with 
any further expense toward preserving or iinishing the 
liouse for the use of the governor. It also resolved that 
Bladen's claim was not warrantable either by the rules of 
law or equity, since his conduct in the affair relative to 
that claim was contrary to and a violation of the trust 
and confidence reposed in him by the people.^ One year 
later the upper house told how it was reported that some 
of the timbers in the unfinished building were rotten, 
many of the shingles stolen, and other materials in danger 
of being rendered (juite useless, and urged that something 
be done to prevent a total loss of the money ali'eady laid 
out.- r>ut to tliis, also, the lower house replied that its 
members had resolved for the present not to intermeddle 
or interfere in anything relating to the building, and that 

1 Ihid.. May 18, 17A0. 

2 L. 11. J., December 12, 1751. 



FINANCE 353 

they apprehended that the loss could not be retrieved, 
nor the public benefited by being at any further expense 
about it. 

Early in Governor Sharpe's administration, Secretary 
Calvert wrote that the lord proprietor so much desired 
the completion of the house that he would be disposed to 
make a voluntary gift toward that end, did he not think it 
advisable that the Assembly should be obliged to complete 
its unfinished work.^ Governor Sliarpe, however, had little 
hope that the Assembly could be prevailed upon to act in the 
matter. He stated that the building was in such a bad con- 
dition that he thought that not less than X300 or .£400 
would be required to put it where it had been left by the 
workmen, and that from X3000 to X4000 would be required 
to complete it.^ The raising of a part of the necessary 
amount by the sale of lottery tickets and by subscription 
was considered, but nothing further was ever done toward 
completing the building for a governor's house. The 
attempt of the lower house to have it finished as a college 
hall, by appropriating the license money from ordinaries to 
that end, also failed.^ On one of the last days of August, 
1766, the roof fell in;* and in this condition it remained 
until after the proprietary government was overthrown. 
For more than a quarter of a century, therefore, it stood 
as a constant reminder of dissension and as conspicuously 
indicative of the diminishing power of the lord proprietor. 

The first act of assembly for regulating ordinaries was 
passed in the year 1678. It required every keeper of an 
ordinary to purchase annually a license, for which two 
thousand pounds of tobacco were to be paid if the ordi- 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 130. 

2 Ihid., p. 50. 

3 Supra, p. 143. 

* Maryland Gazette.^ September 4, 17G6. 
2a 



304 iMAlIVLAM) AS A rilOPUIKTAltV I'ltoVlNCE 

nary was in Annapolis, otherwise, only twelve huiulred 
pounds. The act directed that this tobacco should be paid 
to the lord proprietor. The number of such licenses sold at 
tliis time was, of course, small ; but by the middle of the 
eighteenth century the number had risen to more than one 
liundred, and the price of each had been changed to from 
£A to £5 currency. 

Until the Revolution of 1689 the lord proprietor had 
given the proceeds of the sale of those licenses to his sec- 
retary. But ever after the establishment of the royal 
government, the lower house contended that all such 
money belonged to the public, and, therefore, that it 
could be used only for such ends as the Assendjly should 
direct. A strong jealousy existed between Thomas Cop- 
ley, the first royal governor, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, 
the first royal secretary. This made Copley most willing 
to assent to a bill Avhich directed that the said license 
mone}'' should be paid to liimself. At tlie same time the 
misused but avaricious Lawrence incurred the enmity of 
tlic whole pi'ovince by his mercenary disposition of the 
county clerkships. Then, still claiming a right to the 
license money as a perquisite of his oilice, he made an 
appeal to the crown, and went to England to prosecute 
the same. He was successful, and during Governor 
Nicholson's administration an act of assembly gave the 
money to him as secretary. However, upon the expira- 
tion of that act, in the year 1699, the Assembly again took 
it from him and gave it to the crown for the sup[)ort of 
government. Again, tlic litigious Sir Thomas asked the 
crown to interpose its autliority ; and, again, tlie crown 
directed that he should have tlie money. 

This time, however, instead of complying with that 
direction, the Assembly again passed a bill for continu- 
ing the .application of tliat money according to tlic law of 



FINANCE 355 

1699, and then petitioned the crown to assent to it. In- 
stead of granting the prayer of the petitioners, the crown 
repeatedly urged them to pass the bill so as to make the 
money payable to Lawrence. But as late as the year 
1708, even members of the upper house — the crown's own 
appointees — agreed, in conference with members from the 
other house, that Lawrence's claim was not a valid one, 
and that a full account of the matter should be sent to the 
crown for its better information.^ That account was pre- 
pared, but there is no proof that it was ever presented. At 
any rate, the crown continued more persistently than ever 
to urge Lawrence's claim, and the upper house at last vig- 
orously urged the lower house to yield. But the latter 
body stood firm. It declared again and again that Law- 
rence had no right to that license money. It declared 
that it conceived it to be most contrary to right and rea- 
son, and extremely odious to the people to have a tax 
imposed on a part of them to the enriching of only one, 
who not so much as set pen to paper for it.^ It proposed 
that if it was impossible to pass an act for regulating 
ordinaries without allowing such an invalid claim, then 
ordinaries should be made subject to the laws of the 
mother country ; and it successfully sought the appoint- 
ment of an agent to present the case before the crown. 

The agent was not entirely successful, and with the 
arrival of John Hart as governor, a new claimant for the 
money appeared. Governor Hart stated that, as he was 
about to come to Maryland, he had inquired of Lord Balti- 
more concerning the right to the money accruing from the 
license of ordinaries. 

He said that in reply Baltimore had told him the license 
money had been given to the secretary not as secretary, 
but as a relative, and that, should the government be 

1 U. H. J., December 3, 1708, 2 l. II. J., October. 27, 1709. 



356 MARYLAND AS A PItOI'III KTAltV PIIOVINCE 

restored to him, he should take that money as his own. 
From this Hart contended that the right to the money in 
question was neither in the secretary nor in the country, 
but that it was in the crown. ^ In accordance therewith, 
lie made the offer with respect to applying it toward 
building a house for the governor, with the result already 
noted. 

But the restoration of the proprietary government soon 
followed, and the lord pro[)rietor and his guardian first 
gave the license money to the two secretaries, and then 
requested the Assembly to pass an act ap[)ropriating it 
to that use. At first the lower house refused to do any- 
thing of the kind, and gave as a reason for its refusal 
that, against the most pressing importunities of the late 
secretary, with an order from the queen in council in his 
favor, preceding assemblies had maintained that such 
license money could not be imposed or levied without the 
consent of the people. I'hat body desired tiiat instead of 
giving it to the secretaries, it should be used for the 
support of schools. Finally, however, a compromise was 
made by passing a bill for giving the money to the sec- 
retaries with a preamble in which, after referring to the 
past debates, and expressing gratitude for what the lord 
proprietor had done for the Protestants, he was asked to 
be pleased to accept of the readiness of the Assembly to 
give him the license money as a grateful acknowledgment 
of the benefits received for his administration. 

That bill became a law and was continued in force by 
successive revivals until the 3'ear 1739. But in that year 
of loud complaint against the lord proprietor, the bill for 
continuing it was lost in the lowei' house by a vote of 
nineteen to twent3'-six. The third intercolonial war then 
followed; and from the year 1740 until the outbreak of 

1 U. II. J., iMay U», 1715. 



FINANCE 357 

the fourth intercolonial war that license money was ap- 
propriated toward the redemption of bills of credit issued 
for his Majesty's service in carrying on war. Scarcely had 
the new lord proprietor, Frederick, in the year 1754, com- 
plained of such past appropriations as a violation of his 
property rights, and instructed his governor to pass no 
such acts for the future,^ when the news came of Wash- 
ington's repulse at the Great Meadows. Thereupon, con- 
trary to his instructions, the governor, with the advice of 
the council, assented to a bill making a further applica- 
tion of the license money to military objects. ^ Later, just 
after Braddock's defeat, the lord proprietor himself, tem- 
porarily waiving his claim, authorized the governor to 
assent to a bill giving the license money as an aid against 
the enemy ; and so, until the year 1703, the money con- 
tinued to be applied toward the redemption of bills of 
credit that were issued under the provisions of the supply 
bills passed on this occasion. 

As that year approached, the lower house, still holding 
that the lord proprietor had no right to it, endeavored 
to have the money ai3plied toward the founding of a 
college ; but to such a proposition the lord proprietor 
would not even listen. However, there had for some 
time been little support to this proprietary claim. When, 
prior to Braddock's defeat, tliat claim had several times 
been the insurmountable obstacle to the passing of a 
supply bill. Governor Sharpe was tempted to cry out 
against it. In the year 1755, in a letter to his brother 
John, asking for an opinion as to the matter, he showed 
that there was much legal sentiment in the province un- 
favorable to the said claim. ^ One year later, in a letter 

1 Gilmore Papers. 

2 Supra, pp. 321, .S22. 

* Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 235, 



358 MAllVLAND AS A riiOPRIETARY PROVINCE 

to liis hrotliei- William, he complained that had his hands 
not been tied down by such instructions as empty coffers 
seemed to have dictated, he siiould long ago have had a 
regiment of Maryland troops under his command. ^ 

So little was to be said in support of the attitude of 
the lord proprietor on this matter, that the upper house 
was forced to reject the bills from the lower house without 
giving much reason for so doing ; while it was vain for 
the governor to urge the lower house to pass supply 
bills that did not appropriate the money in dispute. On 
the other hand, the committee on grievances reported that 
it conceived that the clause in the secretary's commission, 
which gave that officer the power of taking to himself the 
advantage of granting licenses for oi-diiiaries, was ci-eating 
a monopoly and, therefore, was infringing the rights and 
privileges of the people of Maryland, 'i'he lower house 
resolved that the lord proprietor had no right to impose 
or levy by way of fine, tax, or duty any sum of money on 
any person whatsoever, or take to himself any such fine, 
tax, or duty without the consent of the representatives in 
Assembly. That body further resolved that the lord pro- 
prietor by accepting the money accruing from the license 
of ordinaries as a gift from the people, in tlie way he did 
in the year 1717, thereby disclaimed all pretensions of 
right to that money by prerogative ; and that by the 
continuance of that law for many years he had acquiesced 
in the right of the people to dispose of the said money. 
The members of the same body also declared to the 
governor that they were so finnly of the opinion that the 
money in question belonged by undoubted right to the 
country that nothing could ever induce them to do any- 
thing which might weaken that right. ^ 

1 Sliai'iie's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 399 et seq. 

2 L. II. J., March 25, 1765. 



FINANCE 359 

Action against this claim went farther than the lower 
honse. In the year 1756 so many petitions from the 
counties complaining of grievances, extortion, and oppres- 
sion — of which the dispute about the license money was 
the immediate occasion — poured into Annapolis that the 
council advised the governor to send circular letters to 
the magistrates of the several counties to inquire about all 
seditious reports. However, the passing of the supply 
bill of this year, by which that money was mortgaged 
until the year 1703, dispelled the danger of an uprising. ^ 

In the year 1764, when the lower house proposed to 
appropriate the money in question toward completing the 
governor's house for use as a college building, a majority 
of the upper house acknowledged to the governor that 
they thought it could not be applied to a better purpose. 
By this time, also, Daniel Dulany had declared that he had 
no idea of a right without a remedy, and that, therefore, 
he did not see how his Lordship could support any claim 
or pretension to such an emolument as that arising from 
licenses for ordinaries. But in reply to these views, the 
lord proprietor, as if it were a matter of course, only 
blindly comjilained of the spirit of innovation, and again 
instructed the governor to assent to no bill whereby his 
sole right and privilege of granting licenses for ordinaries, 
or any other license whatsoever, sliould in any wise be 
invaded or drawn into question, without a clause therein 
to prevent the same from taking effect until he had 
assented to it.^ 

In this obstinate course, the lord proprietor was, how- 
ever, no longer to have the support of the governor, the 
council, or the upper house. When the above instruction 
was laid before the council, that board appointed a com- 
mittee to consider the matter. That conmiittee, in its 

1 C. R., May 22, 1756. 2 ijji^i^ May 23, 1706. 



300 MARYLAND AS A IMloPItl KTAItV rilOVINCE 

report, gave it as its opinion tliat neither Ijy the cliarter 
nor by any act of assembly was the h)r(l [)roprietor en- 
titled to the sole right of granting, ordering, and regu- 
hiting the licenses of ordinary' keepers. It stated that it 
conceived that any person, by the common hiw of Eng- 
hind, might follow the trade of ordinary keeper, as well 
as any other trade, without the license of the crown, and 
that the charter ilid not give the lord proprietor a higher 
prerogative than belonged to the crown. Consequently, 
that committee held that " if the lord propriet(jr liad a 
right" he must have some legal remedy to compel ordinary 
keepers to obtain licenses ; but no such remedy was 
known to that connnittee.^ 

When that report had been made, the council informed 
the governor that they were unanimously of the o[)inion 
that the lord proprietor was in no way entitled to the 
license money accruing from ordinaries, and expressed the 
ai)preliension that if his Lordship should still insist upon 
his claim, it would ver}' much tend to the obstruction of 
public business and be productive of very great dissatis- 
faction. The governor forwarded all tliese opinions to 
the lord proprietor, and at last the eyes of the blind were 
opened. The claim that had stood in the way of passing 
several supply bills was withdrawn as gracefully as pos- 
sible ; and from the year ITliS there was an act of assend)ly 
for licensing ordinary keepers, hawkers, pedlers, and petty 
chapmen which directed that the money arising thereon 
should be applied toward defraying the puljlic charge. 

Similar to the controversy over the claim to the license 
money, was that over the right to fines and forfeitures. 
Until the year 1739, fines and forfeitures arising on the 
breach of almost any one of the penal laws were made 
payable, by each of such laws, to the lord proprietor ; and 

1 C. K., May 27, 1766. 



FINANCE 361 

although some of those fines were given to the clerk of the 
council, no account of them was rendered to the public. 
To this the lower house at last raised an objection ; and, 
from the year 1739, whenever a bill containing a provi- 
sion for any penal imposition was before the Assembly, 
the lower house insisted, usually with success, that the 
line should be made payable for the support of govern- 
ment.^ From the year 1745 that body repeatedly re- 
quested the governor to order laid before it an account of 
all fines and forfeitures that had arisen, from the common 
law as well as from acts of assembly, and of how the same 
had been applied toward the support of government. In 
justification of its calling for such an account, that body 
declared that it conceived the officers of the proprietor 
had, under the authority of the laws of the province, 
taken those fines only in trust and for the benefit of the 
people among whom they were levied ; and that, there- 
fore, the lord proprietor was not at liberty to put them 
into his own pocket. 

After the governor had contended that the lord proprie- 
tor had as good a right to the common law fines as tlie 
king had to those arising in the courts of Westminster, — 
for which he was not accountable to Parliament, — the 
lower house answered that the king supported his own 
courts, whereas in Maryland the people, and not the lord 
proprietor, supported the courts. ^ Again, in the year 1766, 
a committee of the lower house reported that the custom 
of the English kings had been to use the fines for the sup- 
port of government, and that when those fines became insuf- 
ficient for that purpose. Parliament had taken care to have 
an account rendered of all the crown revenues. And then 
the report continued as follows : '' Nor ought the Pro- 

1 Gilmore Papers. 

2 L. H. J., August 20, 23, and September 2, 1745. 



3G2 MAKi'LANI) AS A PROPKII-rrA HV IMJOVINCE 

prietor to expect tlie people here to snj)])()rl the civil Gov- 
ernment in every hranch thereof, whilst lie disposes at his 
will and pleasure of all the revenues ai)})ropriated hy the 
Constitution of the; Mother Country to public uses. And 
although our Ancestors did very iniprovidently in the 
infancy of the Country, wlien these incomes and revenues 
of the Lord Proprietary arising from the Courts of Jus- 
tice or otherwise were inconsiderable, make a perpetual 
provision for many of those expenses ; yet when the peo- 
ple are called upon for a further supply toward the sup- 
port of any of the officers of his Lordship's Government 
not provided for by perpetual law, your Committee are of 
opinion that in such case the people have a right inherent 
in the Constitution to call on his Lordship or his Governor 
to render an account of the monies arising from those 
revenues." ^ 

Although the account which was asked for was not 
given, the lower house made investigation for the purpose 
of ascertaining its amount, and several times refused to 
allow claims on the ground that they ought to be paid 
out of the money arising from fines and forfeitures. On 
that ground. Governor Sharpe was refused payment of 
£120 sterling that he had given for carrying letters and 
sending expresses for his INIajesty's service during war 
time. 2 Likewise in the dispute over paying the clerk of 
the council, the lower liouse contended that he should be 
sufficiently paid out of the money arising from fines and 
forfeitures. 

During the eighteenth century, the ill feeling of the 
lower house toward tlic mendjcrs of the council usually 
exceeded that of the same house toward either the lord 
proprietor or the governor. As a consequence, no oppor- 

1 L. II. J., November 15, 1706. 

2 Sbarpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. .395. 



FINANCE 363 

tuiiity of curtailing the income of the council was ever 
lost. From the year 1671 to the Revolution of 1689, 
the council was probably paid out of the tobacco duty 
levied for the support of government. But during the 
period of royal government, all of the tobacco duty being 
applied to other purposes, that board was paid out of the 
poll tax the same when sitting as a council as when sit- 
ting as an upper house. Yet, while their pay as an upper 
house was demanded by a perpetual law, their pay as a 
council was required by nothing but a precedent, which 
was liable to be broken whenever the ill feeling toward 
them should become strong in the lower house. 

Such a feeling was provoked the very year in which 
the proprietary government was restored. For in that 
year it was learned that Edward Lloyd — who had been 
president of the council during the five years from 1709 
to 1714, when the province was without a governor — 
had taken both regular pay as a councillor and one-half 
the regular pay of a governor. The lower house held 
that as president of the council Lloyd had been, by 
instructions from the crown, constituted a body distinct 
from the council, and that, therefore, while he received 
one-half the regular pay of a governor, he was not entitled 
to further pay as a councillor. They claimed that for 
each of the five years an allowance as councillor had been 
made to him only because he had expressed doubt about 
his receiving any of the salary usually paid to a governor. 
When, therefore, they learned that he had been paid both 
as president of the council and as ordinary councillor, 
they unanimously resolved that he should pay back to the 
public theX52 13s. 6(7. and 29,580 pounds of tobacco, which 
he had received as a councillor during those five years. ^ 
But the upper house, although acknowledging that they 

1 L. II. J., July 20, 1710 ; also August 3, 1716. 



3i>4 MAKVLANO AS A I'Kol'i; I lOTAll V I'KoVlNCE 

tliouy'lit it would have Ijeen more geiierons in Lloyd not 
to have taken pay as a councillor, contended tliat lie was 
a member of the council all the time he had acted as its 
president, and, therefore, that he was entitled to all that 
he had received. Moreover, Lloyd obtained a letter from 
the board of trade stating- that what lie had received was 
his right. ^ The result was that after the controversy had 
been continued for about three years, Lloyd died, and the 
money and tobacco in question were never refunded by 
his widow. 

Tlie course pursued by Lloyd seems, however, to have 
caused the lower house to give more attention to the 
question of paying the entire council, hi the year 1716 
that body ordered its conunittee on laws to ascertain 
how the members of the council had lieen jiaid previous 
to the year 1688. At the request of the committee, the 
matter was deferred till the next session, wdien it was 
int lusted to the committee on accounts. But the report, 
wdien given, told how from 1671 to 1688 a duty of twelve- 
pence per hogshead had been given to tlie lord proprietor 
to enable him in some measure to defraj' the expenses of 
government, and in particular to allow convenient salaries 
to the governor and council. ^ The same committee was 
then directed to pursue its investigation during the period 
of the royal government. It did so. And after pointing 
out that by the act for ascertaining the allowances of 
councillors and delegates, no allowance was made to the 
council out of assembly time, it asked the house for direc- 
tion. But the matter was referred to the next session, 
and Avas not taken up again until the 3'ear 1723. Then 
hesitation ceased. By that time dissatisfaction Mith the 
bargain for paying quit-rents had begun to arise, and the 
question of English statutes, as well as the question of 

1 L. II. J., May ;30, 171'.). 2 Ibid., May 31, 1717. 



FINANCE 3G5 

officers' fees, was arousing the ire of the lower house. On 
the motion of its committee on accounts that body resolved 
that no allowance be made to any members of the council 
for their attendance at that board out of assembly time, 
except wlien it should sit as a court of appeals. 

x\ vigo4'ous controversy then ensued. The lower house 
luid the law on its side ; and the members of that body 
seemed to feel that, in taxing the people for the support 
of the council, they were giving aid to the enemy of 
liberty. Besides, they held that, as was done from 1671 
to 1685, so now, the lord proprietor ought to pay his 
council out of the duty given him for the support of gov- 
ernment. The upper house, on the other hand, had 
nothing but precedent on its side. But its members 
contended that the interest of the lord proprietor and the 
interest of the people were one and inseparable ; that 
they had the welfare of the province as much at heart 
when sitting as his Lordshi})'s council as when sitting as 
an upper house of the Assembly ; and that they had as 
good a right to refuse the allowance to the lower house 
as the lower house had to refuse theirs as a council.^ So 
disturbed was the government over this refusal of the 
lower house, that the governor could not close the session 
without taking part in the dispute. But his plea was 
simply that the generosity of the lord proprietor was 
deserving of a grateful return from the people. He said : 
" His Lordship has generously sacrificed his private inter- 
est for the public good. The most tender endearing 
father could not do more for his own private family. As 
his Lordship is so good to the public, there ought to be 
a grateful acknowledgment of his favors." ^ 

The lower house, however, stood firm. The council 
was obliged to ask the lord proprietor to devise some 

1 U, H. J., October, 1723. 2 /;,,y?., October 26, 1723. 



306 MARYLAND AS A I'UOl'KIETAItY l>l:OVINCE 

other way to pay them for their services. Instead of 
doing so, he urged the lower liouse to make the usual 
allowance. Because of this the controversy was continued 
with renewed vigor in the year 1725. The several mes- 
sages of that year between the two houses contained much 
bitter railing with respect to the matter. In one of the 
last of them the lower house said : " We have done our 
duty in raising a sutlicient support for all the necessary 
uses of the government, and are under no ties of duty to 
raise more because those that are raised are not applied 
to your good liking, once paid well paid. His Lordship 
who employs you is paid by the peo[)le and 'tis no less 
than unreasonable for you to insist on further dues from 
the people for the same service."^ 

For ten years from the date of this message the upper 
liouse did not much urge its claim, and went without pay as 
a council. Hut during one of the last of those years the 
controversy over English statutes was settled, and the lord 
proprietor's visit to the province had contributed much 
toward a better feeling. Accordingly, under these more 
favorable conditions, the upper house, in the year 1735, re- 
newed its old claim. It met with no success that year, and 
the outlook was no better the next, until that house refused 
to pass the journal of accounts unless the regular allow- 
ance was made to the council. The lower house held out 
a while longer. But, again, the upper house declared in 
3'et bolder terms that it would never i)ass the journal of 
accounts without the regular allowance for the council. ^ 
Finally, the lower house yielded so far as to allow the 
claim for that year aiul the year immediately preceding. 

For the next eleven years, also, such an allowance was 
made. But the controversy over oHicers' fees was re- 
newed. So, in 1745, when the question was put in the 

1 U. II. J., November 2, 1725. ^Ibkl. May 4. 1730. 



FINANCE 367 

lower liou.se whether the councir.s allowance should be 
made, the atHrmative received but twenty-seven votes, 
while the negative received twenty-two. Only two years 
later, the year in which officers' fees were made subject 
to law, that allowance was made for the last time. From 
the year 1748 to the year 1756 inclusive, the upper house 
would not pass the journal of accounts without the allow- 
ance in question. But this time the lower house chose 
to let the journal go unpassed, and their own services and 
other public dues go unpaid rather than yield to the 
council's claim. Still further, from 1750, the allowance 
was refused not only to the council, but also to the same 
persons when sitting as a court of appeals. The reasons 
for not making the allowance were at this time even 
stronger than they had been in the year 1723. For it 
was now held that the services of the council were either 
relative to the lord proprietor's private affairs or to mat- 
ters of government. If to the former, then it was said to 
be plain that the people ought not to be burdened to such 
an end. If to the latter, it was said to be equally plain 
that they ought not thus to be burdened because already 
by many acts of assembly fines and forfeitures were given 
to his Lordship for the support of government, and also 
because the duty of twelvepence per hogshead on all 
tobacco exported out of the province was being collected 
and paid to his Lordship under an act expressly giving 
it for the support of government. ^ Lastly, it was now 
held that such an allowance was implicitly denied by the 
act for ascertaining councillors' and delegates' allowances. 
In the year 1756 the upper house gave up the contest, 
or, waiving their claim, passed the journal of accounts 
without the insertion of the allowance so long contended 
for ; and thereafter the claim was not urged. 

1 U. II. J., November IG, 1753. 



368 ^^AI;v^ANI) as a imjoim;ii-:taiiy imjovince 

I)Ut before tlie (lis[)ute with respect to llie whole coun- 
cil luid ended, anotlicr had arisen witli respect to the 
clerk of that board. The lower house knew that this 
servant of the government was receiving an income out 
of the fines and forfeitures, and they held that any fur- 
ther pay to him ought to be given by the lord proprietor 
out of the twelvepence duty for the support of govern- 
ment. Above all, they contended that the people ought 
by no means to be further taxed in order to pay him a 
fixed salary, but that, at the most, he should be paid only 
for particular services after he had rendered an account. 
To the giving of such an account, however, the upper 
house objected because thereby the work of the council 
would be made too public. 

As early as the year 1739, the refusal of the lower house 
to allow certain extra charges of the council prevented 
the journal of accounts from passing. Then, from 1747 
to 1756, a fixed allowance to the clerk of the council 
seems to have been almost as objectionable to the lower 
house as was an allowance to the whole council ; and in 
1756 that house said that to make such an allowance for 
services annually performed in compliance with laws, 
without any account of the services ever being laid before 
them, was a method of expending the people's money to 
which they could never agree.' Yet, although the upper 
house yielded that year as to their own allowance as a 
council, with respect to the allowance of the clerk, they, 
at that time, said, " To speak plainly, which best becomes 
our station, we insist on your making him the usual allow- 
ance, for we are determined never to give it up."'^ The 
declaration of such a determination had an effect. For 
the lower house yielded so far as to agree to the allowance 
up to date. But at the same time that body resolved 

1 L. H. J., May 1, 176G. 2 m^^^ May 4, 1756. 



FINANCE 369 

that for the future no such allowance should be made 
except on having a particular account laid before them 
by the clerk of the public services by him done, and that 
then they would allow only what appeared reasonable.^ 

In accordance with that resolution no allowance was 
made to the clerk for the next seven years ; and as a 
consequence no journal of accounts was passed, and hence 
no public debts were paid. Moreover, as those seven 
years were years of war, and the pay of the militia fell 
largely into arrears, the situation was all the more serious. 
Both houses of Assembly, therefore, began to approach the 
question in earnest. In the year 1763 the lower house 
said to the upper house : " Your Honors no doubt well 
know that the monies received by the Proprietary from 
the people of this province for the support of government 
(whether justly or not alters not the case) are much more 
than sufficient, after all other expenses to which they 
ought to be applied are defrayed, to make the Clerk of 
the Privy Council a full compensation for his services ; 
and we cannot imagine but that his Lordship will be gen- 
erous enough to do it, as his salary stands upon the same 
foundation with j^our Honor's allowance as a Privy Coun- 
cil, the claims of which you have thought proper lately 
not to contend about. Public credit is reduced to so 
low an ebb that we think the world must look upon it as 
the highest injustice in your Honors further to postpone 
the payment of the public debt because we will not tax the 
people for the payment of a salary to the Clerk of the 
Privy Council, who We do unanimously contend ought 
together with your Honors as Privy Councillors to be 
satisfied out of the moneys collected by the Proprietary 
from the people for the support of the Government of this 
Province. "2 Farther on in the same message, an offer 

1 L .H. J., May 15, 1756. 2 /^((^.^ November 25, 1763. 

2b 



370 MARYLAND AS A PKOPHIETAIIV I'KOVINCE 

was again made to allow the clerk for such of his charges 
as should appear reasonable after he should have laid a satis- 
factory account of them before the lower house. But on 
this occasion tlie upper house would make no concession. 
Two years later the situation was brought nearer to a 
crisis when it was reported that several lumdred nien, 
many of them armed witii guns and tomaliawks, were 
about to march to Annapolis in order to remove the ob- 
stacle to the payment of the public creditors, first, by com- 
pelling the clerk of the council to relinquish his claim 
with a threat to pull down his house if he did not, and, 
then, by forcing the upper house to pass the journal with- 
out the allowance in dispute.^ It was said that, upon the 
mere hearing of this report, the clerk was so terrified that 
he desired the upper house to waive his claim. But al- 
though some of the men did appear in the city, no vio- 
lence was done, and the up})er house continued firm during 
their presence. ^ However, only a few days later, the 
upper house ])roposed the passage of an act for paying an 
agent for each house who should lay the subject-matter 
of the controversy before the king in council ; aiul to put 
a stop to the complaints from the public creditors, the 
same house proposed that all should be paid except the 
members of the two houses and the clerk of the council, 
who should wait until a decision of the question by the 
king in council had been received. But to this propo- 
sition, the lower house replied : "• Su})pose the matter 
should be determined in our favor by the King and 
Council, as we really think it would, ought the country to 
pay tlie expense of a government agent? You miglit as 
well contend for the propriety of a man's being obliged, 
before he should be allowed to prosecute or defend his 

1 L. H. J., December 10, 170"). 

2 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, p. 253. 



FINANCE 371 

right, to supply his adversary with money to carry on the 
contest against himself."^ 

Again, the next year, 1766, the lower house referred to 
the distressed circumstances of the province, which were 
ascribed to the destitution of many public creditors and 
to the great need of a circulating medium. In view of 
such alleged conditions that house asked for a conference. 
Then, after that had been agreed to, the conferees from the 
lower house proposed that bills of credit be emitted not 
only to the amount of the public debt, but also to the 
amount of the claim in dispute and a further sum of 
£1500 ; that the public debt be paid in bills of credit ; 
that a sum equal to the amount of the disputed claim be 
put into the hands of the treasurers and by them placed 
out at interest ; that the principal and interest be paid to 
the clerk of the council or his representative, in case the 
king in council should so order, otherwise, that such prin- 
cipal and interest should be and remain the property of 
the public ; and that the said sum of £1500 be paid to 
the order of the lower house to enable that body to em- 
ploy an agent at London for three years. 

But the lord proprietor had for a long time insisted 
that the people of Maryland should not be permitted to 
tax themselves for the support of an agent who should 
represent them before the home government ; and, hence, 
the upper house could but reject the above proposition. 
That body, however, now instructed its conferees to sub- 
mit three propositions to the conferees of the lower 
house : first, that an appeal be made to the king in coun- 
cil, that a sum of money, sufficient to cover the cost to 
the upper house in prosecuting the appeal, be paid to the 
order of the president of the council, and that a like sum, 
to cover the cost of such an appeal by the lower house, be 

1 L. H. J., December 17, 1765. 



372 MAKVLAND AS A I'UOl'KIETAUV I'ltoVINOE 

paid to its speaker ; second, that the appeal be made and 
prosecuted without the allotment or ai)plieati()n of any 
money for that purpose ; third, that all public debts, 
including the back claims of the clerk of the council, 
should be at once paid, but that for the future the clerk 
should be paid, in fees subject to the regulation of the 
erovernor and council. If either the first or the second 
proposition were agreed to, then all public debts, not 
including the claim in dispute, were to be paid as soon as 
convenient ; a sum, equal to the amount of the claim in 
dispute, was to be paid into the hands of one of the 
treasurers and placed by him on good security at interest, 
and the principal and interest was to be accounted for to 
the clerk or his representative or as the property of the 
public in such manner as the king in council should be 
pleased to order or direct.^ 

The lower house chose to agree to the second proposi- 
tion, resolved that Charles Garth should be appointed its 
agent, and appointed a committee to transmit to him a 
full account of the dispute, to receive contributions, and 
to liave the management of a lottery whereby to raise 
money for paying him. Furthermore, that house resolved 
that its committee should have free access to all papers, 
books, and records in any of the public offices ; and to 
encourage the necessary response from their constituents, 
the same body, in one of its resolutions, declared that 
they had a firm reliance on the public virtue and spirit of 
their constituents to move each and every one of them to 
contribute something toward paying the agent. ^ 

A considerable sum was raised by subscription, but the 
lottery was no success.^ The counnittee Avas refused 

1 U. H. J., November 19, 20, ami 21, 17G6. 

2 L. H. J., December G, 1700. 

8 Sharpe's Correspoudence, Vol. Ill, pp. 348, 356. 



FINANCE 373 

access to the council records ; but such a refusal was 
what the committee desired in order that it might report 
the same to the agent, Garth, who was directed in the 
first place to petition the crown for an order to permit 
the lower house to support an agent by a tax. Yet that 
order was never received, and the appeal with respect to 
the clerk's claim was never prosecuted. That claim pro- 
voked little dispute in the Assembly after 1766 ; but still 
it was one of the unsettled questions when the proprietary 
government was overthrown. It must have been that 
the people had little hope that the king in council would 
decide the case in their favor. 

The opposition to a poll tax for the support of the 
council and its clerk arose not only out of the claim that 
the members of that board ought to be paid out of the 
duty for the support of government or out of the fines 
and forfeitures, but also from the fact that the members 
of that board held so many of the most important offices 
and thereby had a lucrative income from fees, the amount 
of which the lower house could not reduce below what 
those officers, as members of the upper house, would agree 
to. For, both as a council and as an upper house, those 
officers held that whenever the amount of those fees was 
not determined by an act of assembly, the lord proprie- 
tor, or the governor in council, had the right to fix their 
amount by the issue of an ordinance without any voice 
of the lower house in the matter. The consequence was 
that no other contest was waged so vigorously or for so 
many years as that about officers' fees. 

Although there was no express provision in the charter 
with respect to fees, it was with good reason held that 
the right to fix their amount was incidental to the lord 
proprietor's authority by charter to constitute offices and 
appoint officers. Yet there was a clause in the charter 



374 MAUVLANU AS A I'ltUPKIETAKY i'KOVINCE 

restraining the lord projjrietor or liis ollieers from the 
issue of liny ordinance which shouhl, ^ in any sort, extend 
to oblige, bind, charge, or take away the right or interest 
of any person or persons, of, or in member, life, freehold, 
goods, or chattels." 

In practice, except during the years from 1G30 to 1642, 
fees were fixed in amount by the governor and council, 
from the founding of tlie colony until the year 1 <)")(). 
liut in tliat year the Asseml)ly began to limit the fees of 
the secretary and the shcrilfs, and a little later those of 
other ollieers. By the year 1(369 the complaint that ex- 
cessive fees were taken contrary to acts of assembly was 
numbered among the list of grievances presented by the 
lower lioLise.i Instead, however, of having that grievance 
redressed that year, those who presented it were told that 
it was the right of the lord proprietor to settle the 
amount of all fees b}' proclamation, and the lower house 
was at that time too weak to offer further resistance. 
But seven years later, while still allowing that the lord 
proprietor had the right to fix their amount, that house 
recpiestcd that a list, as fixed or approvc(l l)y him, be 
laid before it in order that it might draw up a bill for an 
act against extortion. The request was granted and an 
act was passed embodying the lord proprietor's list and 
forbidding any officer to charge fees in excess of what 
was named in the act, the duration of which was un- 
limited. ^ 

Little further attention seems to have been given to 
this subject until after the Revolution of 1689. Then, the 
first royal governor, at the time of his appointment, was 
instructed to regulate tlicm with the advice of the council. 
But early in the first session of assembly that was con- 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, IGGO to 1676, pp. 
160, 176. a Ibid., pp. 498. 499, 532. 



FINANCE 375 

veiled by the first royal governor, the lower house took a 
firm stand in this matter. Instead of consenting to leave 
the regulation to the governor and council, that house was 
unanimous in its declaration that it was the undoubted 
riglit of the freemen of Maryland that no officers' fees 
should be imposed upon them but by consent of their 
representatives in assembly, and that such liberty was 
established by several acts of parliament.^ The outcome 
was that the crovernor at once ag-reed that no fees should 
be either lessened or increased without the consent of the 
Assembly ; and an act for their limitation was passed wliich 
varied little from the act of 1676, except that it Avas made 
temporary instead of perpetual. It was to continue only 
three years or to the end of the next session. It was, 
however, from time to time revived and continued in force, 
with but little change, until the year 1719. In the year 
1704, the lower house asked for a reduction in the table 
of fees, but the upper house refused to agree thereto, say- 
ing that they were not greater than the services required. 
Again, ten years later, after the lower house — complain- 
ing that many of the fees were exorbitant and tended to 
oppression — had passed a bill for reducing them, the 
upper house rejected it on the ground that if passed into 
a law it would discourage men of good learning and in- 
tegrity from accepting some of the inferior offices and 
lower the state and dignity of some of the superior 
officers.^ 

The officers' pay in fees was, however, increasing from 
year to year with the slow increase in population, and by 
the year 1719 the lower house had become firm in its de- 
termination that the fees in the table of the old law should 
be reduced. That body accordingly passed a bill which 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1(584 to 1692, pp. 
294, 382. 2 u. H. J., June 29, 30, 1714. 



3T(J MAItVLANl) AS A IMtUlMIlETAHV I'liOVINCE 

})r()vi(le(l for ii reduction of all fees about twenty-five per 
cent, and justified its action on the ground that even after 
such a reduction the total income from fees would still be 
greater than what it had been when the old law was first 
made. The governor and the upper house asked that the 
old law be continued for one year longer, until the lord pro- 
prietor should be of age and probably be present in the prov- 
ince. But the lower house declared that the fees, as fixed by 
the old law, were so great and oppressive to the inhabitants, 
that they would rather be without an}- law for regulating 
them tliaii to continue the old one any longer. Where- 
upon the upper house rejected the bill and expressed its 
views as follows : " We can't but think you too positive in 
resolving to deprive the country of the l)enefit of the former 
law made for the purpose (which we can't but think has 
been very useful in restraining the several officers from 
charging and extorting excessive fees and making them 
liable to a prosecution and penalty for so doing). Although 
we are of opinion, as well as you, that some of the fees 
allowed several officers by the former law are too highly 
rated and may be reduced, we think that the regulation 
proposed in your bill does so much abridge the perquisites 
of some of those ofiices as not to afford a sufficient support 
for the characters and stations of the persons who execute 
them. Besides, we conceive we should make a very ungrate- 
ful return to his Lordship and our (iovernor for the many 
favors we acknowledge to have received from them if we 
should at once so extravagantly lessen the revenues of 
those offices which are their immediate dependencies, and 
as we are a part of the Legislature for this province we 
think we have a right to interpose our opinion, and that 
such a regulation would have been much more properly 
made by a joint committee. In fine, gentlemen, we hope 
we have the interest of our country as much at heart as 



FINANCE 377 

you, and in discharging oiir duties believe we ought not to 
oppress the poor nor do injustice to the rich, but to pay 
a just regard to all degrees of men by divine Providence 
established amongst us."^ 

After receiving the above message, the lower house 
asked for a conference, to which the upper house con- 
sented. At that conference it was agreed that the fees of 
the chancellor, sheriffs, coroners, clerk of the court of 
appeals, and the criers of the provincial court and of the 
county courts should remain as fixed by the former law, 
while the fees of the secretary, commissary general, sur- 
veyor general and his deputies, the clerk of the council, 
and the clerks of the county courts should stand reduced 
according to tlie table prepared by the lower house. ^ 
This compromise was embodied in the bill, the duration 
of which was limited to three years and to the end of 
the first session of assembly thereafter, or to the end of 
the first session of assembly that should be held after 
the lord proprietor's arrival in the province. That bill 
became a law. On the ground that it was for his honor 
and for the people's interest that the income of the pub- 
lic ministers should be large enough to encourage in- 
dustry and integrity in men of ability to administer the 
offices of government, and on the ground that as people 
and plenty in a country increase, so ought the rewards of 
those who for their care, knowledge, and integrity are em- 
ployed in the' several offices of government, the lord pro- 
prietor threatened to disallow it.^ But to that threat the 
lower house made reply in the following words : " We 
are sensibly touched on account of the seeming dissatisfac- 
tion which your Lordship is pleased to express on account 
of the late regulation of officers' fees, being firmly assured 

1 U. H. J., June 4, 1719. 2 //jj^Z., June 5, 1719. 

^ Ihid., April 21, 1720. 



378 MARYLAND AS A PROPlilKTAKY PKUVINCE 

were your Lordsliip truly apprized of the large sums the 
fees of the several ollicers amount unto, your Lordship 
would in all probability incline to assent to that regula- 
tion which we may justly affirm by the good nundjer of 
people in the province amounts to much more than they 
did when the former act was made which in the judgment 
of every distinguished person here are abundantly suffi- 
cient for the honorable support of j'our Lordship's great 
officers, a handsome maintenance to the lesser, and a suffi- 
cient encouragement to every one of them to discharge 
the duties incumbent on him."'^ Furthermore, the same 
house later declared that fees were not so great in Vir- 
ginia as in Maryland. 

In spite of the fact that the lord proprietor continued 
to express dissatisfaction with the fees as established by 
the law of 1719, the lower house, in the year 1724, pro- 
posed that public dues and officers' fees should be reduced 
one-half. 2 As the upper house regarded this proposal 
most unreasonable and unbecoming the justice and honor 
due from a legislative power, no reduction of fees was 
made that year. But the next year after the lower house 
had passed a bill for the reduction of fees, about twenty- 
five per cent below what they were by the law of 1719, 
it was with but little discussion passed by tin' u})per 
house and signed by the governor.^ It seems that the 
up[)cr house was at this time greatly disgusted with the 
farmer-like view of many of the delegates, who thought 
and declared that there was no reason why an ollicer 
should be paid much, if any, more than a common laborer. 
Under such conditions, that house thought best not to 
offer any opposition to the new fee bill until it came 
before the lord proprietor, and then to present him with 

1 U. JI. J.. October 27. 17-JO. " I.. II. J., October IG, 1724. 

* U. II. J., Novembers, 1725; Dulany Papers. 



FINANCE 379 

an address asking for his veto. This was done, and 
not only was the veto given, but the governor was in- 
structed to pass no bill which should reduce fees below 
what they were under the law of 1719.1 

That veto was received by the people with considerable 
niurmuring,^ but it was in vain that the lower house 
several times passed other bills, providing for a like re- 
duction. Not even in the year 1728, when the bill was 
before the Assembly for raising the price of tobacco by 
limiting the number of plants, was the attempt to decrease 
the quantity of tobacco to be paid in fees successful.^ A 
conference at that time agreed upon a table in which 
many of them were reduced below that at which they had 
been fixed in the act of 1725, and then further agreed 
that if the tobacco bill should be passed, people should 
have the privilege of paying their fees in tobacco with an 
additional reduction of one-third. But the upper house 
rejected what was proposed in the report of the confer- 
ence.* It held that since the price of tobacco had fallen 
since 1725, fees ought to be increased rather than lessened, 
especially since the lord proprietor had vetoed the act of 
that year for the reason that it too much reduced the 
fees ; and as to the one-third reduction in case the tobacco 
bill was passed, the same house held that, even with such 
a law, the price of tobacco might not advance in some 
years, and hence that it would be time enough to lessen 
the fees after an advance had been made in the price of 
that commodity. On the other hand, such a view of the 
situation, by those who were the officers, aroused strong 
feelings among the representatives of the people, who now 
declared that the fees, as proposed in the report, were 
sufficient for a decent maintenance ; that the circumstances 

1 Gilmore Papers. ^ Supra, p. 112. 

2 Dulaiiy Papers. « U. II. J., October 22, 1728. 



380 MARYLAND AS A 1>K( )I>RI KTA K V I'KoVINCE 

of tlie countrv made it their imperative duty to avoid as 
mucli expense as possible ; tliiit the fall in the [)riee of 
tobacco was no reason for increasing the fees unless such 
a fall enabled the people to make a greater quantity of it ; 
and that if the sinking of the value of tobacco were a 
reason for the augmentation of otlficers' fees, and they 
were accordingly augmented, it was to be feared that the 
officers would have all the tobacco, and the planter and his 
wife and children go naked. As to the lord proprietor's 
veto of the act of 1725, the same representative body at 
this time said : " We beg leave to observe that it was 
upon the partial representation of some officers, and we 
can't entertain a thought so injurious (in our opinion) 
to his Lordship's hunuinity and honor as to suspect his 
Lordship would su[)p()rt a few ol'lieers upon the ruin of 
the people of ^Maryland." Finally, they concluded by 
saying: "We entreat your Honors to consider what a 
miserable condition people must be reduced to who can 
hardly support themselves with necessaries by the prod- 
uce of what is left them when they are at full liberty to 
make what they can, if their crops should be reduced to 
two-thirds of what they now make, they be obliged to })ay 
the same levies and other dues and fees they are now 
obliged to pay, and have nothing left to support them- 
selves and families but what would remain after such pay- 
ments, and whether it is not agreeable to natural justice 
that officers who are to be suj)})ort('d by the labor and 
industry of the people should not make an abatement of 
their income proportionate to what the people are obliged 
to make in hopes of a rise in tlie price of tobaccos, and run 
the same hazard with their su[)porters as to the event." ^ 
The upper house yielded to the entreaty so far as to 
agree to a limitation of fees like that in the act of 1725, 

lU. II. J., October 22, 1728. 



FINANCE 381 

and a bill embodying such a proposed limitation passed 
both houses. But the governor, obedient to his instruc- 
tion, withheld his signature. The next year the lower 
house endeavored to have a like bill passed again ; but 
while the upper house acknowledged that the want of 
a law for regulating fees was an inconvenience to both 
officers and people, it declared it to be useless for the 
two houses to pass any bill which reduced them below 
what had been prescribed by the law of 1719. Where- 
upon, the members of the lower house unanimously re- 
solved that they were of the opinion that the fees settled 
by the act of 1725 were full and ample rewards for the 
several services to be done for the said fees. 

It appears that before the end of the year the officers 
were no less concerned about the regulation of fees than 
were the people. For although charges continued to be 
fixed according to the law of 1719, — which had expired 
in 1725, — the governor at this time wrote to the lord 
proprietor that, since the veto of the act of 1725, officers 
had been very ill paid to the disregard of their offices, 
since every insolent fellow thought himself free to refuse 
payment, and browbeat, as it were, the officers. He 
further complained that to have them regulated by act 
of assembly was out of the question, because the lower 
house was determined to diminish them until the pay of 
officers should be reduced to the mean wages of the com- 
monest writing clerks. Then he inquired if the charter 
did not give the lord proprietor the right to regulate them 
by proclamation.^ The result was that after another un- 
successful attempt of the Assembly, in the year 1732, to 
pass a fee bill, the lord proprietor, with the advice of the 
council, issued a proclamation, in the year 1733, for fix- 
ing their amount very nearly tlie same as it had been in the 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 70 et seq. 



382 MAltYLAND AS A I'UolMtlETAUY I'llOVINX'E 

resrulatioii of 171'.>, ami for ciialjliiiL^ tlie ofTicers to collect 
tlieni by the issue of a writ of body execution ; ^ and 
such a (juieting effect did the loi-d proprietor's visit to 
the province at this time have, that there was generally 
peaceful submission to that })roelamation until the year 
1738. 

However, in the years 1735 and 173(3, the lower house 
gently sought the regulation of those fees by act of 
assembly instead of by proclamation. Then, in 1738, 
the storm burst forth again with full force. There was 
general complaint against the writ of execution. The 
committee on grievances reported that the fees, as estab- 
lished by the proclamation of 1733, w'ere burdensome, 
great, and oppressive, to the discouragement, ruin, and 
undoing of many of the iidiabitants, and that even the 
said color of power was exceeded by the unlimited will 
of many of the officers. In the same report — in the 
interest of having fees made payable in the paper currency 
— the committee observed that many poor tradesmen and 
artificers, who made no tobacco, were compelled to buy it 
at excessive and exorbitant prices to the ruin of many 
families and tlieir entire extirpation out of the province 
and the discouragement of tliosc who remained to follow 
their useful arts, labor, and industry. Finally, that 
committee stated that it conceived that, by the common 
and statute law of England, such like fees were settled 
and regulated by courts of justice or by acts of parlia- 
ment ; that, from the earliest settlement of Maryland by 
liritish subjects, fees had been adjusted and regulated by 
acts of assend)ly ; and, therefore, that such proclamations 
were invasions on the fundamental constitution of the 
province under the royal charter and against the lawful 
rights and liberties of his ^Majesty's subjects in Maryland. ^ 

1 C. K., April 14, 1733 ; Diilany rapcrs. 2 j,. n. j., yu^y lo, 1738. 



FINANCE 383 

The next year the lower house ordered five of its mem- 
bers to prepare a fee bill, and, in so doing, to have regard 
to tlie fees settled in Virginia and Pennsylvania.^ But 
after the bill thus prepared had passed the lower house, 
the upper house rejected it and declared that the lord 
proprietor's authority to settle fees was indisputable, and 
that tlie complaint about fees arose for the most part 
from the clamors and uneasy disposition of restless and 
turbulent persons, without any just foundation.^ Although 
a conference was agreed to a little later, the conferees from 
the up[)er house were instructed to agree to no bill for the 
establishment of fees that did not provide for making their 
regulation perpetual. Because of that instruction, the 
conference accomplished nothing ; and, after it had ended, 
the lower house resolved that, in safety to themselves, 
their constituents, and posterity, they could not agree 
to a perpetual law for the limitation of fees. They 
declared that they were clearly of opinion that the 
execution of such powers by the lord proprietor as the 
upper house contended were vested in him, was without 
foundation and inconsistent with the liberty, property, 
and quiet of his Majesty's liege subjects in Maryland.^ 

The committee on grievances then made the same report 
as that of the previous year ; and finally, on this occasion, 
in an address to the governor containing a long list of 
grievances, the members of the lower house delivered 
themselves as follows : " The power assumed of late by 
his Lordship's settling and ascertaining the fees of the 
officers in the Courts of Justice by way of Proclama- 
tion is what we cannot submit to, without prostituting 
the rights of his Majesty's Subjects within this Province. 
We do not know that even the Kings of Great Britain 

1 L. H. J., May 4, 1789. 2 jUfi^ May 30, 1739. 

^Jbicl, June 2, 1739. 



384 IMAllVLANI) AS A IMKHMII I-yPAItY PROVINCE 

exercised their Prerogative in such cases, especially since 
the happy Ivevolution. And on this occasion we entreat 
your Excellency to consider that part of the Royal Charter 
which directs that no ordinances made by the Proprietary 
or his Heirs, their Magistrates or Officers, without consent 
of the Freemen or their Delegates, shall affect the right or 
interest of any person or persons of or in their life, mem- 
ber, freehold, goods, or chattels, which clause is consonant 
to the Great Charter to the benefit whereof we hope we 
shall not be denied a right. However, to avoid all dis- 
putes on this head, we had with great pains and a})pli- 
cation })repart'd a bill for settling fees and made them 
considerably higher than those of our neighboring colo- 
nies, yet we cannot obtain the consent of his Lordship's 
Council to the same without such conditions as would 
in our appreliension prove destructive to the people for 
reasons your Excellency cannot be a stranger to, viz., 
that of making it a perpetual law ; and how reasonable 
it is that the Gentlemen of that Board, who without 
anv warrant from the Royal Charter assume a negative 
on the proceedings of the Delegates of tliis Province, 
and whose seats at that Board are only at the will of 
the Right Honorable the Lord Proprietary, and who 
(with a single exception only) are composed of such as 
hold the chief offices and posts of profit in the Govern- 
ment during pleasure, the exorbitancy of whose fees, 
illegally charged, and the o])[)ressive manner of extorting 
them from the i)eoi)le, was what was endeavored by that 
bill to be remedied, how far we say they ought to be 
judges and have a negative in an affair w^herein they 
are so deeply interested we leave to our Superiors and 
the world to judge." ^ 

l)Ut it required more than lliis appeal to prevail upon 

JL. II. J.. June o. 173'J. 



FINANCE 385 

the other branches of the legislature to yield sufficiently 
to make a law for the limitation of fees. For the next 
few years it appeared to be in vain that the lower house 
renewed its attempt to have a bill passed for that purpose. 
Yet the crisis was approaching. The time was not far 
distant when the officers, the council, the upper house, 
felt that it was to be either a limitation of fees by an act 
of assembly or the ruin of the province. They chose the 
former. In the year 1743 Daniel Dulany and the gov- 
ernor and council made their long representation of how 
the tobacco industry of jNIaryland was alarmingly threat- 
ened with ruin ; how the only way to save it was to pass 
an inspection act; how the question of officers' fees was 
the great obstacle to the passing of such an act, and, there- 
fore, how the refusal to permit those fees being lessened 
would render the officers odious to all mankind and occasion 
the imputing of the calamity of the country to them.^ The 
outcome was that, two years later, all branches of the 
legislature were desirous of coming to an agreement with 
respect to fees. Although the upper house rejected the 
first fee bill of the session of 1745, it declared upon that 
occasion that it was most sincerely disposed to concur in 
any measures that might conduce to the ease and happi- 
ness of the people. The lower house thereupon asked for 
a conference, and the upper house consented. The dura- 
tion of the proposed bill was next agreed to. But although 
the conferees from the upper house agreed to a reduction 
of fees, twenty per cent from what they were fixed at in 
the lord proprietor's proclamation of 1733, the conferees 
from the lower house insisted that the fees, as settled in 
Virginia and Pennsylvania, should be laid before the con- 
ference as a guide. As the upper house refused to agi-ee 
to this, on the ground that in Pennsylvania fees were paid 

1 Supra, pp. 114-116. 
2c 



386 MARYLAND AS A TROPRIETAliY PROVINCE 

in money at the time of the service \vit]i no expense for 
collection, and that in Viri^inia the [)opulation was so 
much the larger, this conference broke uj) without reach- 
ing an agreement. Later in the same session, however, 
another conference agreed to nearly the same regulation 
that the members from the upper house had offered at the 
first conference. A bill, on the basis of this agreement, 
passed both houses ; but the governor, as lie had threatened, 
withheld his assent to it because the lower house had 
not passed an acce[)tal)le bill for the purchase of arms and 
ammunition. 1 Yet, finally, in 1747, nearl}- the same agree- 
ment was embodied in wliat became a law for the inspec- 
tion of tobacco and the limitation of officers' fees, and 
this law was by successive revivals continued in force 
for twenty-three years. 

Until almost the end of that period the fee question 
seems to have received but little attention except that the 
new lord proprietor, Frederick, instructed the governor 
to permit no encroachment on his power and authority 
to regulate fees, and except that the lower house occa- 
sionally made investigation as to the amount of the sev- 
eral incomes from fees. But late in the year 1769, when 
the act of 1747 was about to expire, it was revived to 
continue in foi'ce till October 1, 1770. At the session in 
whicli the law was thus revived, the committee on griev- 
ances reported cases of excessive charges of fees in Charles 
and Prince George's counties, gave it as their opinion 
tliat oilicers in general paid too little regard to the estab- 
lished regulation, and recommended that the delegates, 
after investigating the matter, should bring to the next 
session a report by counties of all exorbitant charges. ^ 

Accordingly, when the Assembly met the next 3'ear, 
1770, the lower house was firmly resolved upon war 

> Supm, pp. 84, .301. 2 l. h. J., December 19, 1769. 



FmAiSCE 887 

ao-jiinst fees. It appointed a committee to ascertain the 
amount of fees that had been due each oflicer for the 
past seven years. It appointed another committee to 
prepare a new bill, and resolved itself into a committee 
of the whole to consider a new regulation. After the 
first committee had made a report, which showed that the 
annual income from fees of the greater offices had in- 
creased more than fifty per cent since the year 1747, and after 
the house had sat several days in a committee of the whole, 
that body unanimously agreed upon a new table of fees.^ 
That table was soon completed, and in it some fees were 
reduced. But it was claimed to have been the principal 
care of those who made it, to prevent charges where no 
services were performed, to prevent double charges for 
the same service, and to prevent evasion of the law 
through ambiguity of expression. The upper house, 
nevertheless, rejected the new table and asked for a con- 
tinuance of the old, with no changes except to give a 
reduction in the case of immediate payment, and to offer 
an option of paying in either money or tobacco at the 
rate of twelve shillings current money for one hundred 
pounds of tobacco. Then, as that was not agreed to, the 
same house proposed that a salary of £600 sterling be 
given to the secretary, the commissary general, and the 
judges of the land office. But that was also refused, both 
on the ground that it was too high and on the ground 
tliat officers would not perform their duties with as much 
diligence when paid a fixed salary as when paid for each 
particular service. 

Many messages on the subject of fees, all indicative 
of strong feelings, passed between the two houses. The 
members of the upper house were not at all disposed 
to agree upon either fees or salaries that would not be 

1 L. H. J., October 3, 12, and 13, 1770. 



388 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVIN'CE 

favorable to themselves as officers, because they felt that, 
in case no agreement was reached, they would, as a coun- 
cil, advise the governor with respect to issuing a procla- 
mation like that of the year 1733. On the other luind, 
after the failure to have fees fixed and regulated accord- 
ing to tlieir new table, the members of the lower house 
suspected tlie design of issuing the proclamation. Accord- 
ingl}^ they, beforehand, vigorously declared themselves 
against the illegality of the same, as if in the hope of 
preventing its issue. They ordered the report of the 
committee on grievances of the year 1739 against the 
proclamation of 1733 to be again entered on the journal. 
They passed the two following resolutions : " Resolved, 
unanimously, that the Representatives of the Freemen 
of this Province have the sole right with the assent of 
the other part of the Legislature to impose Taxes or 
Fees ; and that the imposing, establishing, or collect- 
ing any Taxes or Fees on or from the Inhabitants of 
this Province under color or pretence of any Proclama- 
tion issued by or in the name of the Lord Proprietary, 
or other authority, is arbitrary, unconstitutional, and 
oppressive," ^ 

" Resolved, unanimously, that in all cases where no Fees 
are established by Law for services done by Officers, the 
power of ascertaining the quantum of the reward for such 
services is constitutionally in a Jury upon the Action of 
the Party." 

It was at this time, also, that they committed to prison 
the clei'k in the land olfice merely because, in obedience 
to instruction from the judges of that office, he had 
charged fees according to the (^Id table. ^ A little later 
that same house made the I'ollowing declaration to tlie 
governor, " Tlie Proprietor has no Right, Sir, either Iiy 

1 L. H. J., November, 1, 1770. 2 Supm, pp. 73, -'08. 



FINANCE 389 

himself, or with the advice of his Council, to regulate the 
Fees of Office ; and could we persuade ourselves that you 
could possibly entertain a different opinion, we should be 
bold to tell your Excellency that the People of this Prov- 
ince ever will oppose the Usurpation of such a Right." 
Finally, as if to direct the hostility of the people against 
the council, they struck a severe blow at the upper house 
in one other resolution, which was in the following words, 
" Resolved, yiemine eontradicente, that the Upper House, 
four members of which hold the Secretary's, Commissary 
General's, and Land Office, . . . have in the intercourse 
between the two Houses on the subject of Fees manifested 
an unreasonable attachment to the emoluments of office 
and evinced an unjustifiable design to force this Branch 
of the Legislature by the feelings of the People into a 
regulation of Fees more corresponding to those Schemes 
of Wealth and Power which it is to be much appre- 
hended are formed by some of the great Officers of this 
Government, and which, if carried into execution, will tend 
to the oppression of the People, and, in the end, greatly 
endanger their Liberties."^ 

Nevertheless, the governor and council were not thus 
prevailed upon to refrain from the unpopular course ; and 
five days after the Assembly was prorogued, the procla- 
mation appeared. 2 It was dressed in the thin disguise 
of an instrument designed to prevent oppression ; but in 
reality it authorized ofiicers to charge fees according to 
the table in the recently expired law. As a consequence, 
when the Assembly was again convened, the following 
year, the proclamation was the principal subject before 
the lower house, and it was chiefly with the governor 
that that body held intercourse with respect to tlie same. 
Eight days after the opening of the session, the committee 

1 L. H. J., November 8, 1770. 2 j^id,^ October 17, 1771. 



300 MAKVLAND AS A IMM )PUI KTA i:V I'KOVINCK 

on grievances reported that fees, as then paid, were exces- 
sive and ()[)pressive. At the same time, whatever could 
be found in English statutes, the Ahiryland charter, and 
acts of the assembly against sucli proclamation was col- 
lected. Later, resolutions were i)asscd declaring that 
the proclamation was illegal, arbitrary, and oppressive, 
and that the members of the council, who advised the 
governor to issue it, were enemies to the peace, welfare, 
and happiness of the province and the laws and constitu- 
tion thereof. Then, in an address to the governor, they 
gave a long argument against tlie proclamation. They 
declared that in England fees had been established and 
regulated by act of parliament, but that they had not 
found a single instance of any proclamation by the king 
of England for levying the salaries or ascertaining the 
fees of oflicers. They also cited 34 Edward I, Cha[)ter I ; 
Coke's interpretation of the word "Tallagium '' ; Will- 
iam and Ahirv, C'bapter II ; Section VIII of the Maryhind 
charter; and tiie journals of the Assend)ly for the year 
1(')!>2, as abundantly suflicient to prove tliat the proclama- 
tion was opposed to tlie law and custom l)oth ol' tlie prov- 
ince and of the mother country. They contended that 
when there was no law for determining what fees might 
be demanded, they Avere recoverable only after a jury had 
fixed the amount, upon an action of the party. 

Then they continued as follows : " Permit us to entreat 
your Excellenc}' to review this unconstitutional assump- 
tion of power and consider its pernicious consequences. 
Applications to tlie [)ublic offices are not of choice, but of 
necessity. Redress cannot be had for the smallest or 
most atrocious injuries but in the courts of justice. And 
as surely as that necessity does exist, and a binding force 
in the proclamation l)e admitted, so certainly must the 
fees thereby established be paid in order to obtain redress. 



FINANCE 391 

In the sentiments of a much approved and admired writer, 
suppose the fees imposed by this proclamation could be 
paid by the good people of this province with the utmost 
ease, and that they were the most exactly proportioned 
to the value of the officers' services, yet even in such a 
supposed case, this proclamation ought to be regarded 
with abhorrence ; for who are a free people ? Not those 
over whom government is reasonably and equitably exer- 
cised, but those who live under a government so constitu- 
tionally checked and controlled that proper provision is 
made against its being otherwise exercised. This act of 
power is founded on the destruction of this constitutional 
security. If prerogative may rightly regulate the fees 
agreeable to the late inspection law, it has a right to fix 
any other quanturas; if it has a right to regulate to one 
penny, it has a right to regulate to a million ; for where 
does its right stop ? At any given point ? To attempt 
to limit its right after granting it to exist at all is as con- 
trary to reason as granting it to exist at all is contrary to 
justice ; if it has any right to tax us, then whether our 
own money shall continue in our own pockets or not 
depends no longer on us but on the prerogative ; there is 
nothing which we can call our own. . . . The fore- 
fathers of the Americans did not leave their native coun- 
try and subject themselves to every danger and distress, 
to be reduced to a state of slavery." Finally, they stated 
that they apprehended the proclamation had been issued 
on the advice of some of those whose interest in the fees, 
which they had thus attempted illegally to establish, 
ought to have excluded them from his Excellency's con- 
fidence ; they asked that the names of those ill advisers 
who had " daringly presumed thus to tread on the in- 
valuable rights of the freemen of Maryland " should be 
made known ; and they requested that the minds of the 



392 MARYLAND AS A IMM »l'i:iE I'A I; V PIIoVINf'E 

people might l)e quieted Ijy the speedy withdrawal of the 
proelamatioii.^ 

In his i"ei)ly, the governor pointed out that, by the hnvs 
of the province, no aetion eouhl be brought before a jury 
unless the value in dispute was equal to six hundred 
pouiuls of tobaeco or fifty sliillings current nione}.^ He 
showed that in some of the provinces under the govern- 
ment of the English crown fees were established by the 
royal prerogative. He held that in the lord proprietor's 
right to constitute offices and appoint officers was implied 
the right to determine what rewards those officers should 
have. He found precedent in the province in support of 
his right to issue the proclamation. And in conclusion he 
said : " I did not determine to issue my proclamation till 
after the most mature consideration it appeared to me to 
be a measure not onl}^ lawful but necessary, not only what 
I might but what I ought to pursue. ... So clear is 
my conviction of the propriety and utility of a regulation 
to prevent extortion and infinite litigation, that instead of 
recalling, if it was necessary to enforce it, I sliould renew 
my proclamation, and, in stronger terms, threaten all offi- 
cers with my displeasure, who shall presume to ask or re- 
ceive of the people any fee beyond ray restrictions."^ 

An unsuccessful attempt was made at this session and 
at each of the two following ones to pass a fee bill. But 
after the above reply was made by the governor, the most 
important discussion, on tliat burning subject, was no 
longer carried on in the halls of the Assembly, but appeared 
in the columns of the Gazette; and the most turbulent 
(h'monstrations provoked by it, were made at the polls. 

In regard to no otlier questions were the contradictions 
of the Maryland charter more involved. Botli sides could 

1 L. II. J., November 22, 1771. 2 Supra, p. 2-41. 

8 L. 11. J., November 30, 1771. 



FINANCE 393 

cite antliority. But while those who stood for the preroga- 
tive were the more moderate, and relied almost solely on 
the law and the custom of the past, those on the other side 
had more enthusiasm and were fighting against what popu- 
lar leaders, not onl}^ in Maryland but in England and her 
other colonies, had fully determined to tolerate no longer 
than was necessary. 

The two principal men engaging in this controversy, 
through the columns of the G-azette, were Charles Carroll 
against the proclamation, and Daniel Dulany in defence 
of it. The former signed himself, " The First Citizen " ; 
the latter, "Antilon." 

Carroll was a member of a wealthy Catholic family that 
from the beginning of the century had led the opposition 
to the Protestants. In the year 1765 he had returned to 
the province, after an absence of sixteen years devoted to 
study and travel. His religious faith, his long period 
of training, and his natural endowments — especially his 
ready pen — made him a fearless, a formidable antagonist. 

Daniel Dulany was the son of that able lawyer who had 
led the lower house to victory in the contest with the lord 
proprietor over the right of the people of Maryland to the 
common and statute law of the mother country. Tlie 
younger Dulany had been thoroughly educated in Eng- 
land. By the skill, weight, and force of his argument 
against the Stamp Act, he had won for himself the reputa- 
tion of being the most able man in the province. Espe- 
cially was he looked upon as a high authority in legal 
matters. For a few years after the repeal of the Stamp 
Act he was exceedingly popular. But when it came to 
pass that his influence in the council was thought to con- 
trol the governor, when he held the lucrative office of sec- 
retary, while his brother Walter held the next most 
lucrative office, that of commissary general, when two other 



394 MATIVLANI) AS A rKoritllCT AIIV PIIOVIXCE 

relatives of his were given seats in the council, when terri- 
torial affairs were again brouglit under the control of that 
board, and when he resisted with all his might the further 
reduction of fees and advised the governor to regulate 
them by proclamation, his popularity vanished. 

Carroll's iirst article, which a})i)eared February 4, 1773, 
had a powerful effect, not because it contained any logical 
argument against the illegality of the proclamation, but 
because of its incendiary nature. It was clearly under- 
stood to whom he referred when he charged that a push 
was being made to find offices for certain persons so that 
all power might be concentrated in one family. He ex- 
pressed a fear that even a i)erpetuity of office might be 
aimed at. Adoi)ting the principle that the king can do no 
wrong, he threw all the blame on the council. " Govern- 
ment was instituted for the general good," he continued, 
" but orticers intrusted with its powers have most commonly 
perverted them to the selfish views of avarice and ambi- 
tion ; hence the country and court interests, Avhich ought 
to be the same, have been too often opposite, as must 
be acknowledged and lamented by every true friend of 
liberty. ... I have known men of such meanness and 
such insolence (qualities often met with in the same per- 
son) who would wish to be the first slave of a Sultan to 
lord it over the rest ; power sir, power, is ajit to pervert 
the best of natures ; with too much of it I would not trust 
the milkiest man on earth ; and shall we place confidence 
in a minister too long inured to rule, grown old, callous, 
and hackneyed in the crooked paths of policy ?" He de- 
clared that by the loss of the inspection act Maryland 
tobacco had fallen into disgrace in foreign markets, and 
that, as a consequence, every man's ])roi)erty was decreas- 
ing and mouldering away. Finally, he told the people 
that the creneral welfare had been sacrificed in order to 



FINANCE 395 

preserve from diminution the salaries of a few officers, 
who, in advising the governor to regulate fees by procla- 
mation, had advocated a measure like those which cost 
King Charles I his crown and his life. 

The spirit in which these sentiments were received by 
some of the party of discontent may be seen in the fol- 
lowing words of a letter from the " Independent Whigs," 
to " The First Citizen " : " We thank you for the senti- 
ments which you have spoken with an honest freedom. 
We had a long time impatiently waited for a man of 
abilities to step forth and tell our daring ministers in a 
nervous style, the evils they have brought upon the com- 
munity, and what they may dread from an injured people, 
by a repetition of despotic measures. While we admire 
your intrepidity in the attack, permit us to applaud that 
calm and steady temper, which so precisely marks and dis- 
tinguishes your excellent performance. . . . Go on. Sir, 
and assert the rights of your country : every friend to 
liberty will be a friend to you. Malice may rage, and 
raw heads and bloody bones clatter and rattle ; but the 
honest heart bold in the cause of freedom feels no alarm.'' 

It was two weeks after Carroll's attack before Dulany 
made his defence of the proclamation. He began by 
saying : " The restriction of officers' fees (on the falling 
of the Inspection Law), by the Governor's Proclamation, 
has been represented to be a measure as arbitrary and 
tyrannical as the assessment of ship money, not by fairly 
stating the nature of each transaction, and showing the 
resemblance by comparison, to convince the understand- 
ing ; but in the favorite method of illiberal calumny, 
virulent abuse, and shameless assertion, to affect the 
passions. Inveterate malice, destitute of proofs, has 
invented falsehood for incorrigible folly to adopt, and 
indurated impudence to propagate. As the artifice to 



396 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

raise alarm can succeed only in proportion that it deceives, 
it will be my endeavor to counteract the pestilent purpose 
by piesentin<^ to the reader, for his candid examination, an 
iu)partial account of the ship money and the proclamation." 

He then proceeded to show that after Charles I had 
bound himself, in answer to the Petition of Right, not 
to levy any tax on the peojjle without the consent of 
both houses of Parliament, he became determined to rule 
without a Parliament, and then, by recourse to his pre- 
rogative, began to levy the ship money on the false pre- 
tence that it was needed for defence. 

But as for Governor Eden's proclamation, Dulany con- 
tended that it did no more than to restrain officers from 
taking more than was prescribed by the old table, which 
was the most moderate of any ever established in the prov- 
ince. Furtliermore, he stated that the proclamation was 
binding only in so far as it was legal, and that the question 
as to its legality was determinable only in the ordinary 
courts of justice. He was also pleased to suggest that if 
the king could do no wrong, appeal be made to him. 

This defence called forth the superior ability of the 
assailant ; and in his second article Carroll stated that 
he proposed to show that the issue of the proclamation 
was contrary to the spirit of the Maryland constitution. 
He declared that he could not believe that the avowed 
motive of issuing it was the real one. He pointed out 
that, in submitting the question of its legality to the 
courts, the judges would be one of the interested parties. 
He said that to decide it was legal, would rob the lower 
house of the right to settle fees with the concurrence of 
the other bram-hes of the legislature, and that, as fees 
were taxes, this would overthrow the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the constitution. 

His exact words on these last two points were : " Reasons 



FINANCE 397 

still of greater force might be urged against leaving with 
the judges the decision of this important question, whether 
the supreme magistrate shall have the power to tax a free 
people without the consent of their representatives, nay, 
against their consent and express declaration I shall only 
adduce one argument to avoid prolixity. The Governor, 
it is said, with the advice of his Lordship's Council of 
State, issued the Proclamation. Three of our Provincial 
justices are of that Council ; they therefore advised a 
measure as proper, and consequently as legal, the legality 
of which, if called in question, they were afterward to 
determine. Is not this in some degree prejudging the 
question ? It will perhaps be denied (for what will some 
men not assert or deny?) that to settle the fees of officers 
by Proclamation, is not to tax the people ; I humbly con- 
ceive that fees settled by the Governor's proclamation, 
should it be determined to have the force of law, are to 
all intents and purposes a tax upon the people, flowing 
from an arbitrary and discretionary power in the supreme 
magistrate — for this assertion, I have the authority of 
my Lord Coke, express in point — that great lawyer, in 
his exposition of the statute de tallagio non concedendo^ 
makes this comment on the word tallagium — 'Tallagiura 
is a general word and doth include all subsidies, taxes, 
tenths, fifteenths, impositions, and other burthens of charge 
put or set upon any man, that within this act are, all new 
offices erected with new fees or old offices with new fees 
for that is a tallage put upon the subject, which cannot 
be done without common consent of Parliament.' The in- 
spection law being expired, which established the rates of 
officers' fees, adopted by the Governor's proclamation, I 
apprehend the people (supposing the proclamation had not 
issued) would not be obliged to pay fees to officers accord- 
ing to rates; this proposition I take to be self-evident. 



398 MAllVLANl) AS A PUOl'lMKrAUV I'KOVINCE 

Now, if the proclainulion can revive those rates, and the 
payment of fees agreeable thereto can be enforced by a 
decree of the chancellor, or by judgment of the provincial 
court, it must clearly foHow that the fees are new, because 
enforced under an authority entirely new, and distinct 
from the act by which those rates were originally iixed. 
l*erhai)s my Lord Coke's position will be contradicted, 
and it will be asserted that fees payable to officers are not 
taxes ; but on what principle such an assertion can be 
founded, I am at a loss to determine ; they bear all the 
marks and character of a tax ; they are universal, un- 
avoidable, and recoverable, if imposed by a legal authority, 
as all other debts. . . . One would imagine that a com- 
promise, and a mutual departure from some points respec- 
tively contended for, would liave been the most eligible 
way of ending the dispute ; if a compromise was not to 
be effected, the matter had best been left undecided; time 
and necessity would have softened dissension and have 
reconciled jarring opinions and clashing interests; and 
then a regulation by law, of ollicers' fees, would have fol- 
lowed of course. What was done? The authority of the 
supreme magistrate interposed, and took the decision of 
this important question from the other branches of the 
legislature to itself ; in a land of freedom this arbitrary 
exertion of prerogative will not, must not, be endured." 

He then broke forth in a furious personal attack on 
Dulany, as the chief author of the grievance, saying : 
"Dismayed, trembling, and aghast, though skulking be- 
hind the strong rampart of (iovernor and Council, this 
Antilon has intrenelied himself chin deep in precedents, 
fortified with transmarine ojjinions, drawn round* about 
him, and hid from public view, in due time to be jilayed 
off, as a masked battery, on the inhabitants of Maryland." 

Dulany replied ; but. in doing so, he added little to his 



FINANCE 399 

former arguments. How thoroughly the discussion had 
aroused the voters of the province, is seen from accounts 
of the election of delegates, held in the month of May of 
this year. After the closing of the polls in the city of 
Annapolis and in the northwest counties, a tumultuous 
crowd made that proclamation an object of derision by 
performing some ceremony as if to seal its doom. To the 
sound of muffled drums, with the proclamation in a coffin, 
with banners that bore inscriptions condemning it, with 
weapons of war and with a grave digger, the march was 
made from the polls to the gallow.s, where the offensive 
document was hanged, cut down, and buried, the ceremony 
being accompanied by a discharge of musketry. At the 
same time the newly elected delegates were instructed by 
their electors to return thanks in the name of the public to 
" The First Citizen " for the patriotic stand which he had 
taken ; and it was in compliance with such an instruction 
that Paca and Hammond, delegates from the city of An- 
napolis, wrote to him the following : " Your manly and 
spirited opposition to the arbitrary attempt of government 
to establish the fees of office by proclamation justly entitles 
you to the exalted character of a distinguished advocate 
for the rights of your country. The proclamation needed 
only to be thoroughly understood to be generally detested, 
and you have had the happiness to please, to instruct, to 
convince, your countrymen. It is the public voice. Sir, 
that the establishment of fees by the sole authority of pre- 
rogative is an act of usurpation, an act of tyranny, Avhich, 
in a land of freedom, cannot, must not, be endured." ^ 

But in the face of all this demonstration the upper 
house remained firm, and the governor did not withdraw 
the proclamation. The only marked advance of the 
opposition, after the election, was that made in another 

1 Maryland Gazette, May 20, 1773. 



400 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

Gazette article, signed l)y Thomas Jolinson, Samuel Chase, 
and William Paca, in whicli these gentlemen contended that 
the ultimate authority was to be found, not in the king, 
but in the freemen of Maryland, who were to pronounce 
final judgment upon any great question in such successive 
elections of delegates as should follow a reasonable number 
of dissolutions of the Assembly. It is not improljable 
that the proclamation, had the proprietary government 
continued a few years longer, would have fallen before 
this view as to the ultimate source of authority ; but, as 
it was, discontent was in a measure temporarily pacified by 
the revival of the old inspection act, without the table 
of fees, and then the Revolution soon followed. 



CHAPTER VI 

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 

Maryland was too small a province for the question of 
local government to rise to first importance ; and yet the 
lack of facilities for intercourse strengthened the people's 
desire for decentralization in the administration of pub- 
lic affairs, especially of those pertaining to justice.^ Like 
that of the Palatinate of Durham, this province was origi- 
nally organized as the government of a single county, the 
local divisions of which were the hundreds and the manors. 
And in those early days a hundred was erected by the 
governor and council only as there was occasion for it, 
through the growth of a new settlement ; while a manor 
was erected only when there was a grant of a large tract 
of land. 

But from the time Kent Island was reduced to submis- 
sion, the settlement or group of settlements on the eastern 
shore was governed more and more like that of a separate 
county. The formal erection of counties began in the year 
1650 ; and four years -later the county had become the 
unit of representation in the central government, as well 
as the principal civil division for carrying into execution 
the will of that government. The number of counties 
increased from three, in the year 1650, to fifteen, in the 
year 1773. Each of the several counties, soon after its 
formal erection, was divided into hundreds ; and with the 

1 Supra, pp. 2:^,7-241. 
2d 401 



402 MAllVI.AM) AS A l'i:( )IM; 1 1: 1' A K V l'i:(»VINCE 

increase in population each of the hirger or more populous 
hundreds was divided, and, in some cases, even subdivided. 
So that, wliile in several of the older counties there were 
originally only four or five hundreds, by the middle of the 
eighteenth century there were in most of the counties from 
ten to fifteen ; and in Frederick County tlie number, by 
the year 1775, had increased to twenty-seven. The erec- 
tion of manors was continued until toward the close of tlie 
seventeenth century. Very soon after the establishment 
of the royal government, the ten counties — all that had up 
to that time been erected — were divided into thirty par- 
ishes. Through the erection of new counties, and the 
division of some of the old parishes, the number, by the 
year 1770, had increased to forty-four. The erection of 
towns by general town acts was begun in the year 11)88, 
and by particular town acts, in the year 1728. From the 
year 1070 there was one city. 

The local organs of government were, therefore, tlie 
county, the liundred, the manor, the parish, the town, 
and the city. With the exception of the erection of one 
county by act of assembly, and the acts for the erection of 
towns, — the first and principal one of which was passed 
only after persistent urging and whipping by the lord pro- 
prietor, — the right of establishing local bodies, previous 
to the Revolution of 1G89, was exercised onl}' by the lord 
proprietor or by the governor and council. But after 
that revolution not one of sucli bodies, except the hun- 
dred, was established without the autliority of the General 
Assembly; and from that time the hundred was erected 
not by the governor and council, but by an order of the 
county court. 

The county was an organ through which a great variety 
of functions were performed. As already stated, it early 
succeeded the hundred as the unit of representation in 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 40-3 

the popular branch of the legishitive Assembly. It was 
only by counties that the freemen ever instructed their 
delegates to that Assembly. The militia was organized 
and trained by counties. The county was the unit for 
the apportionment and the collection of taxes. The 
county court, with its four sessions a year, was an impor- 
tant organ for the administration of justice. The same 
court performed a variety of administrative functions that 
were other than strictly judicial. The justices of that 
court advised the sheriff with respect to the day on which 
the election of delegates should begin ; and they sat with 
him during that election. They divided the county into 
hundreds and highway precincts. They laid out the first 
ten counties into parishes, and afterward settled dis- 
putes relating to parish boundaries. They heard and 
answered petitions for the laying out of new highways. 
Once a year they appointed a constable for each hundred 
and an overseer for each highway precinct. To them the 
tobacco inspectors were required to render accounts ; and 
for misbehavior they could remove an inspector from of- 
fice. They bound out orphan children as apprentices. 
In some of the counties they engaged a physician to care 
for sick paupers. They granted petitions and made 
appropriations in the county levy for the support of the 
poor and needy. They exempted paupers and superan- 
nuated slaves from the poll tax. In a few cases they 
directed the sheriff to sell insolvent debtors into servi- 
tude. In some counties they occasionally directed a 
church vestry to sell an immoral woman and her children 
into slavery. They provided the county with the stand- 
ard of weights and measures. They licensed keepers of 
ordinaries. They paid bounties for the killing of bears, 
squirrels, and crows. They paid out, annually, several 
thousand pounds of tobacco in prizes for the best pieces 



404 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

of linen manufactured within the county. They let con- 
tracts for the keeping- of ferries and the erection and 
repair of county buildings. They, in answer to petition 
from the vestry and cliurch wardens, levied a tax, not 
exceeding ten pounds of tobacco per poll, upon the tax- 
able inhabitants of the parish. Tliey, by act of assem- 
bly of the year 1704, were authorized to levy such taxes 
as were necessary to defray " the several and respective 
county charges." 

In interpreting the above words of the act of 1704, a 
dispute arose as to the extent of power conferred by it. 
The court of Prince George's County, late in the year 
1747, passed an order for levying one hundred thousand 
pounds of tobacco with which to repair the courthouse. 
The cry at once arose that if the execution of such an 
order was to be permitted, there might soon be taxation 
without representation. It was contended in several 
articles published in the Maryland Gazette that it was 
not the intention of the act to authorize a county court 
to levy taxes other than for small charges.^ The basis 
of this contention was found in English custom, precedent 
established by the several county courts, the act of assem- 
bly that limited the parochial tax to ten pounds of tobacco 
per poll, and the limitation of tlie jurisdiction of county 
courts in civil cases. The result was that less than one 
year after the order of the Prince George's County court 
was passed, the General Assembly, by passing a supple- 
mentary act to the act of 1704, declared that the original 
act should not be construed to give the county justices 
power to levy taxes for defraying other than the " ordi- 
nary, usual, and necessary charges annually arising." 
At the same time that body much more definitely limited 

1 Maryland Gazette, January 20, February 10, March 16, 23, April 13, 
20, 27, May 4, 11, and June 4, 1748. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 405 

tlie power in question by authorizing those justices to 
levy a tax not exceeding ten thousand pounds of tobacco 
for the full and complete repairing of the courthouse, not 
exceeding six thousand pounds for the repairing of the 
prison, not exceeding eight thousand pounds for tlie 
repairing of any one bridge, and not exceeding twenty 
thousand pounds for the building of a new bridge. A 
larger sum for any of the above purposes was to be levied 
only by authority of a special act of the General Assembly. 

Each county cared for its own poor ; but no almshouses 
and workhouses were built until the year 1768, when an 
act of assembly made provision for such houses in each of 
five counties, and before the Revolution of 1776 the poor 
of two otlier counties were likewise provided for. Five 
trustees, forming a close corporation, were put in charge 
of this new institution. No trustee was obliged to serve 
longer than five years ; and, being discharged in rotation, 
they were to choose a successor to one of their number at 
the end of every year. They were to meet four times 
a year for the transaction of business. When they had 
purchased the land and built and furnished the houses, 
they were to appoint an overseer, who was to serve dur- 
ing their pleasure. Lastly, the trustees were to compel 
the poor to work, and in tliis they were to be aided by 
both sheriffs and constables. 

The only other county institution was the county school, 
the management of which was intrusted to seven visitors. 
These officers also formed a close corporation. They bought 
the land, erected the school building, made the necessary 
rules and regulations, employed the schoolmaster. They 
also appointed a register, who kept an account of all their 
proceedings and submitted to the General Assembly an 
account of their application of the school money. ^ 

^ Supra, pp. 140-144. 



406 MAltVLANl) AS A l'i;( »IM: I1':TAUV I'UOVINCE 

111 the oiirly days, the huiuh-etl was the unit of repre- 
sentation in the General Assembly. It was. also, in those 
days, the principal organ for military service, taxation, 
the administration of justice and police regulation. Each 
hundred then had its military band, wliich was trained 
by the sergeant. The view of arms and ammunition was 
taken by hundreds. For service in garrison or in any 
expedition against tlie Indians, each liundred was re- 
quired to contribute its (piota of men and submit to taxa- 
tion for the maintenance of the same. In the year 1<!4!) 
an order of assembly directed that once a month, for 
five months, the freemen of each liundred might assemble 
at some appointed place and there pass such orders and 
ordinances as they should judge necessary for their de- 
fence. Then, too, each hundred had one or more jus- 
tices of the peace and a constable. 

With the erection of counties the importance of the 
hundred declined, and for a long time was little more 
than a constablewiek. The constable, however, continued 
to perform important services. lie prepared the list of 
taxables. He was present at every session of the county 
court to give information to the grand jury. He was 
authorized to execute all warrants directed to him by the 
justices of any court and to arrest every person charged 
with a breach of the peace. If an offender resisted, he was 
to raise the hue and cry and give chase. Especially was 
he directed to raise the hue and cry for the pursuit of 
murderers, thieves, other felons, and fugitive servants. 
He must assist in executing the acts of assembly against 
profane cursing, swearing, and drunkenness. He was to 
do what he could to prevent the tunniltuous meeting of 
slaves. 

As had been the custom in tlie mother country, so, in 
some measure, in Maryland, every hundred was repre- 



LOCAL GOVEllNMENT 407 

sented at the county court. It was so represented by its 
constable. It had one or more representatives among the 
grand jury, and the governor, in appointing the county 
justices, may have sought to give each hundred a repre- 
sentative in that body. 

With the pohtical awakening in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, the freemen of the hundred became more and more 
conscious of themselves as a body politic. Occasionally 
they held a meeting of their own to discuss political 
affairs. Now and then a petition had its origin in such 
a meeting. Finally, when the great contest with the 
mother country came, the hundred became the useful 
organ which it had been in the early days. It was in 
their respective hundreds that the freemen met and 
formed themselves into companies for military service in 
that great conflict. Subscriptions for raising the neces- 
sary money were taken under the direction of committees 
in the several hundreds.^ The committee of observation 
in each of the several counties was in large measure com- 
posed of men representing the several hundreds. In 
February, 1775, at a meeting of the freemen of Frederick 
County, it was resolved that the voters of each hundred 
of that county should elect a number of the members of 
the committee of observation that was in proportion to 
its number of taxables : one, if the number of taxaljles 
did not exceed 200 ; two, if the number of taxables was 
between 200 and 400 ; and three, if the number of tax- 
ables exceeded 400. ^ 

The formation of large estates in England during the 
Middle Ages resulted in the inclusion of many hundreds 
within manors ; and so, in the early days of Maryland, 
whenever the estates were large, were inhabited by several 

1 Maryland Gazette, January 5 and 12, 1775. 
2 /6id., February 2, 1775. 



408 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

tenants and servants, and the owners were separated by 
wide intervals from other habitations, tliere was reason for 
erecting such estates into manors and thereby intrusting the 
owners with local jurisdiction. But as the province became 
more thickly settled, and especially as slaves supplanted 
the tenants and servants, that institution fell into disuse.^ 

The ollicers of the manor were the steward, the bailiff, 
the constable, and two affeerors. The steward was ap- 
pointed by the lord of the manor ; but it is probable that 
all the other officers were chosen in court by the resident 
freemen. Tlie wlidle Ixxly of resident freemen sat at one 
and the same time both as a court baron and as a court 
leet. A freeman who was absent was subject to a fine of 
one hundred pounds of tobacco, payable, as were other 
fines, to the lord of the manor. The steward presided as 
judge. Twelve of the freemen served both as a grand 
jury and as a petty jury. Whenever the fine imposed by 
the judge or jury was thought excessive, it was revised 
by the affeerors. Stocks, pillory, and ducking stool were 
provided as instruments of justice by a general contri- 
bution throughout the manor. The civil duties of the 
bailiff and the constable were probal)ly similar to those 
of the sheriff in the county and of the constable in the hun- 
dred. Besides transacting its judicial Ijusiness, the court 
passed some legislative measures. 

Of the few extant records of the manorial courts of 
Maryland, the following items serve to illustrate the more 
characteristic practises of this antiquated institution : 
"INIartin Kirke took of the lady of the manor in full 
court, by delivery of the said steward, by the rod, accord- 
ing to the custom of the said manor, one message, etc., 
and so the said Kirke having done his fealty to the lady, 
Avas thereof admitted tenant." 

* S^ipra, p. 52. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 409 

"We present an alienation from James Edmonds to 
Thomas Oakley upon which there is a relief due to the 
lord, and Oakley hath sworn fealty." 

"The jury presents Robert Coojjer for cutting of sedge 
on St. Clement's Island and fowling without license, for 
which he is amerced ten pounds of tobacco." 

" We present Luke Gardiner for catching two wild hogs 
and not restoring the one-half to the lord of the manor, 
which he ought to have done, and for his contempt therein 
is fined two thousand pounds of tobacco ; afferred to two 
hundred pounds of tobacco." 

" We present John Mansell for entertaining Benjamin 
Hamon and Cybill his wife as inmates. It is therefore 
ordered that the said JNlansell do either remove his in- 
mates or give security to save the parish harmless by the 
next court under pain of one thousand pounds of tobacco." 

" We present Humphrey Willy for keeping a tipling 
house and selling his drink without a license at unlawful 
rates, for which he is fined according to act of assembly 
in that case made and provided." 

" We present that Thomas Rives hath fallen five or 
six timber trees upon Richard Foster's land within this 
manor, referred till view may be had of Rive's lease." 

" We present tliat John Blackiston hunted John Teni- 
son's horses out of the said Blackiston's cornfield fence, 
which fence is proved to be insufhcient by the oaths of 
John Hoskins and Daniel White." 

" We present Joshua Lee for injuring John Hoskins 
his hogs by setting his dogs on them and tearing their 
ears and other hurts, for which he is fined one hundred 
pounds of tobacco and cask." 

" We present also a Cheptico Indian for entering into 
Edward Turner's house and stealing a shirt from thence, 
and he is fined twenty arms length if he can be known." 



410 MAKVLANI) AS A PUOrill KTA II V PROVINCE 

" We present also the King of Clu-ptieo for killin<( a 
wild sow, taking lier pigs, and raising a stoek of tliem. 
Referred to the honorable the Governor." 

" We conceive that Indians ought not to keep hogs, for 
under pretence of them they may destroy all the hogs 
belonging to the manor ; and therefore they ought to be 
warned now to destroy them, else to be fined at the next 
court. Referred to the honorable the Governor." 

" We do further present that our bounds are at this 
present time imperfect and very obscure. AVherefore 
with the consent of the Lord of the Manor we do order 
that every man's land shall be bounded, marked, and laid 
out between this and the iiext Court by the present jury 
with the assistance of the lord u[)()ii pain of two hundred 
pounds of tobacco for every man tliat shall make default." ^ 

The lirst church act, passed in the year 1G92, directed 
that the justices of each county, with the aid of such prin- 
cipal freeholders as they might appoint, should divide and 
lay out their county into as many parishes as in their dis- 
cretion should be thought convenient. The result of this 
direction was that, by the year 1696, four of the counties 
had been divided into four parishes each, two into three 
each, and four into two each. When a parish was once 
laid out, it could not l)e divided or have its boundaries 
changed without authority given by an act of assembly. 

The officers of the parish were six vestrymen at least, — 
of whom the minister was one, — two church wardens, a 
clerk, and a register. By act of 1692 the vestrymen were 
chosen by the freeholders. When once chosen, there was 
nothing in that act to prevent their continuing in office for 
life or until they ceased to be residents of the parish, and 
vacancies were to be filled by the remaining members. But 
by the act of 1702 the taxable freeholders of the parish were 

1 Mayer, " Ground Uent.s in Maryland," pp. 151-157. 



LOCAL GOVEIINMENT 411 

each year, after asking any two of the vestrymen to retire 
from office, to elect two others to succeed them. Finiilly, 
an act of 1730 directed that they shoukl retire in rotation, 
two each year, and that for three years after retiring they 
shoukl not be liable to reelection. Until the year 1702 the 
church wardens were chosen by the vestry alone ; but by 
the act of that year they were thereafter chosen by 
both the vestry and the other taxable free-holders. The 
clerk was appointed hy the minister ; the register, by the 
vestry. 

The vestry was a corporate body for the holding and 
the disposal of church property and for the acceptance of 
bequests. It was required to meet regularly on the first 
Tuesday of every month. It and the church wardens 
were required to attend to the l)uilding and the repair of 
the church or chapel and to pay all parochial charges. 
The church site, however, might be chosen by the whole 
body of parishioners ; and the vestry could not choose the 
minister, for this was a right exercised by the governor. 
When necessary, the vestry and chui-ch wardens could 
request the county court to levy a tax on the taxable 
inhabitants of the parish, not exceeding ten pounds of 
tobacco per poll. If a larger sum was needed, they were 
obliged to present a petition to the governor and council, 
who laid it before the General Assembly. In the year 
1758 the General Assembly passed an act to empower the 
justices of Charles County to levy on the taxable inhabi- 
tants of Port Tobacco Parish in their county no more than 
two pounds of tobacco per poll, annually, for the support 
of an organist in said parish. Again, in the year 1774, 
another such act provided for the support of an organist 
in one of the parishes of St. Mary's County. The reg- 
ister kept a record of all births, deaths, marriages, and 
vestry proceedings. These records the parishioners 



412 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETAItY I'llOVINCE 

might inspect ; and, at any time, they might appeal to 
the governor and council against a vestry act. 

It was the duty of the vestry to labor for the suppres- 
sion of immoralit}' ; to that end it was required to set up 
in the church a table of marriages; and with the same 
purpose it sometimes reported its incorrigible cases to 
the county court. As stated above, that court sometimes 
decreed that the vestry should sell an immoral woman 
and her children into slavery. Furthermore, the vestry 
was rtHpiircd to perform some duties tliat were wholly 
secular. When an attempt was made to limit the number 
of tobacco plants, the vestry chose men to do the count- 
ing. Under the inspection act, each vestry was to nomi- 
nate for every tobacco warehouse in its parish four men 
for inspectors, from wliom the governor was to choose two. 
And by the supply act of 175G, which taxed bachelors, the 
vestry and cliurch wardens of each parish were required to 
prepare a list of all their bachelors of twenty-five years of 
age and over, setting forth the value of each one's estate. 

The powers of the vestry in church affairs were, there- 
fore, very limited. It was tied down close to the will of 
the central government on the one side and to that of the 
parishioners on the other. Neither were its duties in 
secular affairs of a nature to bring popularity upon those 
dischai-ging them. The consequence was that tlie office 
of vestryman was not a coveted one. In tlie year 1728 
the lower liouse unanimously resolved tliat it was a griev- 
ance that there was no act of assembly for lining those 
vestrymen who refused to serve ; and two years hiter the 
Assembly fixed the fine for such an offence at one thousand 
pounds of tobacco. 

Effort after effort was made to promote the growth of 
towns ; but every such effort was powerless to overcome 
natural obstacles. When a regulation of the tobacco in- 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 413 

dustry had become much needed, the governor, in the year 
1668, issued a proclamation naming thirteen places for ports 
and forbidding shipment from any other place or places 
under pain of one year's imprisonment. In each of the 
years 1669 and 1671 a similar proclamation was issued; 
but the government was unable to enforce such measures. 
The governor, Charles Calvert, however, upon becom- 
ing lord proprietor, was still persistent and hoped that the 
end might be attained through a legislative enactment. 
Accordingly, in the year 1682, the upper house passed 
such a bill as he and the council proposed. The loAver 
house referred it to a committee. That committee pro- 
posed several amendments. Members of the upper house 
then joined the said committee. The upper house again 
passed the bill as amended by the joint committee. But 
after the lower house had twice read the amended bill, 
that body voted that many other amendments were nec- 
essary, and asked that the whole matter be referred to the 
next session. The upper house, however, was not willing 
to give it up. A conference of all the members of both 
houses was agreed to. But in that conference the lower 
house stated that the lord proprietor in his speech at the 
opening of the session had made no mention of the need 
of any such bill ; and then insisted that it be permitted 
"to preserve its privileges, and not be further pressed 
upon new matters." At the opening of the next session, 
in the year following, the lord proprietor did not fail to 
mention the matter. The upper house then proposed that 
it be considered by a joint committee, and to that end 
each house appointed two members. A bill was framed 
in which some of the places proposed for towns were 
named by the committee, and others by the lord proprie- 
tor. The lower house expressed its aj)})roval of the bill, 
but declined to pass it except on condition that the upper 



414 MAUVLAM) AS A PROPIUKTAUV IMIOVINCE 

house would first pass the bills for levying,' \var and for 
the electiou of delegates, and that the lord proprietor 
would also give his assurance that he would sign the same. 
The naming of such conditions thoroughly incensed the 
lord proprietor. He ordered the lower house to be called 
before him, gave to it a free expression of his sentiments, 
whipped it into line ; and the result was that the bill was 
passed before that day's adjournment. Yet the obtaining 
of a law by means of such pressure was not necessarily 
much of an advance upon the proclamation. 

Thirty-one town plots, of one hundred acres each, Avere 
to be laid out ; and shi^jping from any other place or places 
within the province was forbidden. Three sujiplementary 
acts, passed before the Revolution of 1(589, increased the 
number to fifty-seven. Many, if not all, of the proposed 
towns were actually laid out ; but in the year lt)92 lK)th 
the principal and the supplementary acts were rei)ealed. 

The next town act, passed in the year 1G94, providccl 
for the erection of only two towns, — Anne Arundel, on 
the western shore, and Oxford, on the eastern shore. A 
collector and a naval othcer were to reside in each ; and to 
the one or the other of them ships were to come for entering 
and for clearing. The following year the name Anne 
Arundel was changed to Annapolis, and Oxford to Williani- 
stadt. Still one year later Annapolis was made an incoi-- 
porated town, and in 1708 it was incori)oi-ated as a city. 

Another general town act was passed in the year 1T0(J, 
and two supplementary acts were jjassed the following 
year. These acts provided for the laying out of about 
fifty town i)lots of one hundred acres each. They directed 
that ships and vessels should unload at some one of the 
said towns, but placed no restriction as to the place of 
loading, and the crown disallowed them. 

Such were the last general town acts ; and there was 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 415 

no furtlier town legislation of any kind nntil the year 
1728. But from that year until the middle of the cen- 
tury many an act was passed for the laying out of some 
particular town, or for laying out anew some town that 
had formerly been platted under direction of one of 
the general acts. By direction of such particular acts, 
each of the following towns was laid out in the year indi- 
cated : Leonard-Town in 1728; Charles-Town in Charles 
County and Baltimore-Town in Baltimore County in 1729 ; 
Cecil-Town and Chester-Town in 1730 ; Ogle-Town, 
Jones-Town, Salisbury-Town, Kings-Town, Benedict Leon- 
ard-Town, and Bridge-Town in 1732 ; Jansen-Town and 
Princess Anne-Town in 1733 ; Frederick-Town in Cecil 
County and George-Town in Kent County in 1736 ; 
Snow Hill-Town, Bladensburgh, and Charles-Town on 
Northeast River in 1742; lialtimore-Town and Newport- 
Town in Worcester County and Upper Marlborough- 
Town in Prince George's County in 1744 ; Princess 
Anne-Town in Somerset County in 1745 ; and George- 
Town in Frederick County in 1751. But, again, seveial 
of these towns, although laid out by direction of a par- 
ticular act, would not grow ; others grew so little that it 
did not become necessary, after they were once laid out, 
to separate the government of them from tlie government 
of the county in which they were located ; and so, in 
only a few cases, was a town government instituted. 

In the general town acts, twenty-four commissioners in 
each county were directed to lay out the several towns 
within their county ; but each of those acts, after the first 
one, permitted the commissioners of each county to divide 
themselves into committees, and the committee composed 
of members living nearest to a place named for a town 
were authorized to superintend the laying of it out. In 
the particular town acts, special commissioners were 



416 MARYLAND AS A PKOPRIKTAKV PROVINCE 

directed to lay out the one town named. Squares were 
marked off in eacli town fin- a church, chapel, market- 
house, and other public buildings. In Williamstadt, in 
Ainiajxjlis, and in ('harles-Town on Northeast River, from 
one hundred to three hundred acres were purchased for 
the town commons. The lots were always made equal in 
size, usually a little less than one acre each. The general 
town acts directed that one hundred acres should be laid 
out for every town ; but by the several particular acts the 
size of the town plots varied from twenty to five hundred 
acres. The general acts forbade any person to purchase 
more than one lot in any one town witliin four months 
from tlie time the town was laid out ; but in the several 
particular acts the time during wliich tliis restriction was 
to continue varied from four months to three years. All 
acts for laying out towns re(;[uired that he who took up a 
lot should complete the building thereon, within a speci- 
fied time, — usually one year, — of a dwelling house 
covering at least four hundred square feet of ground, 
or forfeit his title to the lot. Some of the particular 
acts further required that the chimney of the dwelling 
should be built of brick or stone. Finall}', nearly all the 
particular acts forbade the town inhabitants to allow 
cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, or geese io run at large witliin 
the town. 

In many of the towns, the lack of iidiabitants left little 
for the coniniissioners to do after the town was once laid 
out. But in Annajjolis, before it became a city, in Balti- 
more-Town, in Frederick-Town, and in Charles-Town on 
Northeast River, the powers and duties of those officers 
grew with the development of a town govennnent. By 
act of 169G eight commissioners were made a corporate 
body known as the commissioners and trustees for the 
port and town of Anna[)olis. In tliat capacity they could 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 417 

sue and be sued. They were empowered to make such 
orders and by-laws as were consonant and agreeable to the 
laws of England and the acts of the Maryland Assembly. 
They were constituted the justices of the town court, and 
were empowered to appoint the clerk and the crier of that 
court. As justices, they were empowered to hear and de- 
termine any civil case arising between any of the towns- 
men in which the value in dispute did not exceed £5 
sterling or one thousand pounds of tobacco ; they were 
also authorized to punish misdemeanors and breaches of 
the peace, not extending to life or member, committed 
within the said town. And they were empowered to make, 
erect, and constitute a market to be held once every week 
and a fair to be held every year at such time and place as 
they should think most convenient — persons coming to such 
market or fair not to be subject to arrest except in case of 
treason, murder, or felony. To fill a vacancy in the said 
corporate body — caused by death, resignation, or change 
of residence — the resident freemen were to elect one who 
possessed the qualifications required of each delegate to 
the lower house of the General Assembly. 

Even down to the Revolution of 1776 no other town 
government in Maryland was so fully organized as was 
that of Annapolis before it became a city. However, by 
the middle of tlie eighteenth century, the commissioners of 
Charles-Town on Northeast River had been authorized 
to lay out money for the erection of public buildings. 
They had been directed to meet on the tenth day of May 
each year, to view and perpetuate the boundary marks 
between lots, and to inspect and inquire into the manage- 
ment of the wharf and store houses. They had been 
directed to fix the wharfage and storage rates. They had 
been authorized to ap[)oint a clerk, a viewer of flour, a 
wharfinger and storehouse keeper, and an overseer of 
2e 



418 MARYLAND AS A I'KOrUIin'AKV I'liUVlNCE 

high ways. It was the duty of the clerk to keep a record 
of I heir proceedings. It was the duty of the viewer of 
flour to brand all flour shipped ; and a fine of one shilling 
Avas to be imposed for every condemned barrel. It was 
the duty of the overseer, at such times as he or the com- 
missioners should appoint, to require the male inha])itants 
of the town to assist in cleaning the streets, or in the build- 
iuij of bridyes and causeways — a fine of five shilling's to 
be imposed for every day's neglect to obey the summons 
of the overseer. For a time tlie committee filled all vucan- 
(ucs in their own number ; but as soon as there were twenty 
residents who were qualified to vote for delegates to the 
lower house of the General Assembly, those vacancies 
were to l»e filled by election. 

A more evident advance in town government one may 
expect to find in the thriving town of Baltimore. Only 
sixty acres were laid out for that town in the year 1729 ; 
but in the yeai- 1745 it and Jones-Town were incorporated 
as one. The act by authority of which this was done and 
one other act, passed two years later, further directed that 
the commissioners should meet at least once a year to see 
that the boundary marks of each lot were kept up and 
preserved. They were authorized to settle any dispute 
about such boundaries. With the consent of the owners 
of adjacent lots, they might widen or otherwise alter any 
lane or alley. They were given powei- not only to appoint 
and to remove the town clerk, but also, for his pay, to 
lev}, assess, and take by way of distress, if necessary, 
from the inhabitants of the said town, by equal and even 
])nii)ortion, £3 yearly. They were given power not only 
to make rules and orders for the holding of two annual 
fairs, but also for the improvement and regulation of the 
town in general, pi-ovided they wi're not inconsistent with 
the laws of i\Iar\land and the statutes and customs of 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 419 

Great Britain. Lastly, they enjoyed the privilege of fill- 
ing vacancies in their own number.^ 

The development of town government involved by no 
means a strong movement toward decentralization. Not 
one of the towns was given the privilege of sending dele- 
gates to the General Assembly ; and only in two instances 
were the townsmen permitted to elect either their princi- 
pal or their lesser officers. Of town meetings like those 
in New England there were none. However, with the 
increase of business, the powei's and duties of the com- 
missioners were extended. They were made a corporate 
or a ^Masi'-corporate body, and were given the right of ap- 
pointing the other town officers. The General Assembly 
interfered little in a direct way with the management of 
town affairs, other than to pass laws for the establish- 
ment and regulation of a market in Baltimore-Town, in 
Frederick-Town, and in Chester-Town. The Frederick- 
Town market act, for example, directed that the market 
hours should be from morning until noon on Wednesdays 
and Saturdays. All victuals and provisions brought to 
town for sale (except fish, oysters, grain, flour, bread, 
butter in flrkins or other vessels exceeding twenty pounds 
net, cheese, pork by the hog, beef or pork in barrels or 
larger casks, live cattle, sheep, and hogs) upon those days, 
or any other days, were to be carried to the market house. 
No one was to buy out of market during market hours. 
The justices of the county court were to appoint a clerk 
of the market, who was to rent tlie stalls and destroy any- 
thing unwholesome, 

1 An act of 1771, to prevent the exportation of non-merchantable flour 
staves, and shingles, and to regulate the weight of hay and the measure 
of grain, salt, flaxseed, and firewood, directed the commissioners to ap- 
point an inspector of flour, from one to three persons to cull staves and 
shingles, from one to three persons to measure grain, salt, and flax, and 
fx'om one to five persoia§ {.o weigh hay au(J cord wood. 



420 MAIJYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

The cities of the province were St. Mary's and Annapo- 
lis ; with the erection of the hitter, however, the former 
ceased to be. Tlie charter of St. Mary's was granted by 
tlie lord proprietor, or liis governor, in the year 1670. All 
of the provisions of that charter are not known ; yet the 
extant records show that the city had its mayor, recorder, 
aldermen, and common council ; that the mayor's court was 
lield by the mayor, recorder, and aldermen once a month ; 
tliat the same officers, together with tlie council, made 
by-laws; that the constable was an important officer for 
executing those by-laws, and that tlie corporation chose 
two delegates for the General Assembly.^ 

In the winter of 1694-95 the seat of the provincial 
government was moved from the city of St. Mary's to 
Anne Arundel-Town, later named Annapolis, and the con- 
sequence was that the first city lingered but a few years, 
and then disappeared. The second, Annapolis, was erected 
in the year 1708, when Governor Seymour, with no di- 
rection from the crown for so doing, granted its charter. 
A mayor, a recorder, six aldermen, and ten common coun- 
cilmen were made a corporate body with (•ai)acity to sue 
and be sued. The mayor was to hold office for a term of 
only one year, and his successor was to be chosen from 
among the aldermen by all the mendjcrs of the corpora- 
tion. The recorder, the aldermen, and the common coun- 
cilmen were to hold office during good behavior, and a 
vacancy in any of those offices was to be filled by the 
remaining members of the corporation. The recorder 
was always to be a lawyer ; an alderman was always to 
be chosen from among the common councilmen ; and a 
common couiuilnian AAas always to be chosen from among 
the freemen of the city. The mayor, the recorder, and 
the aldermen were the justices of the peace, an<l also jus- 

1 Proceedings of the Council, KjHX %q lG85-8(3, p. 418. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 421 

tices of the court of hustings, and were given power to 
appoint the other necessary ofhcers of that court ; for 
the first six years, however, the sheriff of Anne Arundel 
County was to act as slieriff of Annapolis, and after that, 
the entire corporation was to appoint one. The mayor, 
the recorder, the aldermen, and five senior common coun- 
cilmen were to choose the city's two delegates to the Gen- 
eral Assembly. 

The corporation was given power to make by-laws and 
ordinances for regulating trade, and for good government 
within the precincts of said city ; but every such law or 
ordinance was to be agreeable to the laws in force within 
the province. It could, also, impose a penalty, not exceed- 
ing forty shillings, when necessary to secure observance 
of its laws or ordinances. It was permitted to hold two 
markets weekly and tAvo fairs yearly. It was empowered 
to set a toll on goods, cattle, and merchandise sold at the 
fairs, not exceeding sixpence on every beast, or the twen- 
tieth part of the value of any commodity. It was empow- 
ered to hold a court of piepowder during the said fairs 
for the determination of all controversies and quarrels, 
according to the usual course in England in such like 
eases. And it was permitted to enjoy the profits of such 
markets, fairs, and court. The court of hustings — held 
by the mayor, recorder, and aldermen, or any three of 
them — was given cognizance of cases of trespass and 
ejectment, of cases arising out of writs of dower, and of 
all other actions personal and mixed in which the value 
involved did not exceed £6 10s. or seventeen hundred 
pounds of tobacco.^ 

The General Assembly met in the month following the 
grant of this charter ; and the lower house, contending 

1 The original charter is in the land office at Annapolis ; the Chancery 
Records, preserved in the same office, contain a copy of it. 



422 MARYLAND AS A PllOPRIETARY PROVINCE 

that the governor had no right to grant it without an 
order from the crown, expelled the two delegates elected 
under it, and especially com[)lained because the members 
of the cor[)oration alone, instead of all the freeholders, 
had l)een given the right to elect those delegates.^ When 
the house remained firm, the governor dissolved the 
Assembly. But in the month following that dissolution, 
the governor was presented with a petition, signed by the 
corporation and the greater part of the other iidiabitants of 
the city, in which he was asked that the two delegates, and 
those who were to fill vacancies in the common council, 
should be elected by a vote of all the freeholders of the 
city. Also in this petition those were designated as fi'ee- 
holders who owned a lot of land with a house built thereon, 
according to law; or those who actually resided in the city 
and had a visible estate of £20 sterling; or those who, 
having served five years at any trade in the city, had be- 
come householders and inhabitants of the same.^ Although 
the governor granted the prayer of this petition, when the 
Asseud)ly had again met, the newly elected house asked 
him to show his authorily from the crown for erecting cities. 
This he could not do ; and it was only after a eouference of 
some members from both houses that a compromise was 
agreed upon, whereby the charter was to be confirmed by 
an act of assembly. That act, when j)assed, directed that 
all public lands and buildings in the city should remain to 
the uses to which they had been allotted ; that the former 
town judges should hold their courts as usual; that the 
justices of Anne Arundel County should exercise their usual 
jurisdiction in Annapolis; that by-laws should be restrained 
to the residents of the city ; and the act also reduced the 
[)oll rates to be levied on commodities sold at the fairs. ^ 

1 U. II. J., SopU'inber 27, 1708. 2 Chancery Records. 

3 L. II. J., December 1, 1708. 



CHAPTER VII 

RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 

The religious disquietude of western Europe, during 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, exerted a 
powerful influence in determining the future of America. 
The prevalence of religious toleration, however imperfect, 
in the English colonies, as against intolerance in England 
herself, caused the population of those colonies to increase 
more rapidly than it otherwise would. At the same time, 
the strong and highly centralized government of the 
French Jesuits and the untiring zeal and cunning diplo- 
macy of those religious enthusiasts were well adapted to 
the winning of Indian alliances. And in the coiitest of 
the English and the French for dominion in America, the 
superior numbers of the former helped to win them suc- 
cess. What is more, religious unrest not only aided the 
English in getting possession of the country, but in some 
of the colonies, particularly in Maryland, changes in re- 
ligious conditions helped to remove obstacles that impeded 
progress toward a more just, equitable, humane, and be- 
neficent government. The first lord proprietor found 
so few Catholics whom he could induce to settle in his 
province that he thought it expedient to encourage Prot- 
estants of every denomination by giving them his promise 
that they should be permitted to enjoy religious tolera- 
tion. It was, however, too early for perfect religious 
toleration to be practised ; and the result was that the 

423 



424 MAUVLAND AS A PKOrKIETAKV I'llOVIN'CE 

lord proj)rietor had trouble first witli the Catholics and 
tlu'ii with the Protestants. The Protestant opposition 
grew with the increase in population, and became the occa- 

» sion as well as one of the deep-seated causes of the 
Revolution of 1G81). As a result of that Revolution, the 
popular branch of the legislature enjoyed a large accession 
of power, and the control of the people became more and 
more extensive. The Protestant Episcopal Church was 
established by act of assembly. But a divided jurisdic- 
tion left it without the necessary government, and the 
unrestrained immorality of several of the clergy robbed 
it of power and influence. The consequence was that, 
although the moral standard of the community suffered 
a temporary decline, the Maryland legislators were not 
carried back several thousand years and tied to the law 
of Moses, nor were they held in terror-stricken suspense 

^by portrayals of a fiery abyss ; but the most influential 
among them, lawyers by profession, felt the pulse of the 
l)cople, and then strove for such legislation as they judged 
would be socially expedient. In this manner the chains, 
which in later mediieval days had bound the end to the 
beginning, were broken, and the spirit of progress was 
liberated. 

The second lord proprietor, in the year 1678, gave the 
following account of how his father, forty-six years be- 
fore, had made his promise of toleration to the first Mary- 
land colonists: ""At the first planting of this Provynce 
by my ffather Albeit he had an Absolute Liberty given to 
him and his lieires to carry thither any Persons out of the 
Dominions that Ix'longed to the Crowne of England wlio 
should l)c found Wylling to goe thither yett when he 
came to make usie of this Liberty lie found very few 
who were inclyned to goe and seat themselves in those 

• parts But such as for some Reason or other could not 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 425 

lyve with ease in other phices And of these a great part 
were such as could not conforme in all particulars to the 
several Lawes of England relateing to Religion Many 
there were of this sort of People who declared their Wyll- 
ingness to goe and Plant themselves in this Provynce so 
as they might have a Generall Toleraccon settled there 
by a Lawe by which all of all sorts who professed Chris- 
tianity in Generall might be at Liberty to Worshipp God 
in sucli Maimer as was most agreeable with their respec- 
tive Judgm'® and Consciences without being subject to 
any penaltyes whatsoever for their so doeing Provyded 
the civill peace were preserved And that for the secureing 
the civill peace and preventing all heats [and] Feuds which 
were generally observed to happen amongst such as differ 
in oppynions upon Occasion of Reproachfull Nicknames 
and Reflecting upon each Others Oppynions It might by 
the same Lawe be made Penall to give any Offence in 
that kynde these were the condic5ns proposed by such 
as were willing to goe and be the first planters of this 
Provynce and without the complying with these con- 
dic5ns in all probability This Provynce had never beene 
planted/' ^ 

After this agreement had been reached, the first colo- 
nists set out for their new home. Of their number ninety' 
were freemen and one hundred and thirty were women, 
children, and servants ; of the freemen, a majority were 
Catholics, while of the servants, a majority were Protes- 
tants. Li view of these proportions, and in conformity 
with the agreement, the lord proprietor instructed the 
officers, who were Catholics, to cause all acts of the 
Roman Catholic religion to be done as privately as pos- 
sible, to be silent upon all occasions of discourse con-' 
cerning matters of religion, and to give no offence to 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1CG7 to 1087-88, p. 207 ct seq. 



426 MAi:VLANI> AS A IMlOl'IlIKTAliV I'KOVINCE 

Protestants, but to ti'eat them with us much mildness and 
favor as justice would permit. 

But while this anxiety of the lord proprietor for his 
own temporal or economic welfare was leading him into 
tlic forward movement of religious toleration, his con- 
scious endeavor to provide for the spiritual welfare of 
the colonists soon threatened not only to bring tem[)oral 
destruction upon himself, V)ut to establish in the colony 
a corrupt ecclesiastical tyranny against which his own 
countrymen had fought for nearly four hundred years, 
and which they had at last overthrown. Father Henry 
More, the English Provincial for the Society of Jesus, was 
the lord proprietor's chief spiritual adviser. He is said to 
have agreed to give his sup})ort in adopting and applying 
the principle of toleration, and at the same time to have 
offered the assistance of his society in the colonizing enter- 
j)rise. Accordingly, three Jesuit })ricsts — Andrew White, 
Thomas Copley, and John Althani — were sent over as 
missioiKirics with the lirst colonists. I'liey had been in 
the province but three or four years when the lord i)ro- 
prietoi' was startled by being informed that tiiey claimed 
the right to accept, for their s(jciety, gifts of land from 
the Indians ; that they claimed that in a new and unsettled 
country the canon law prevailed jwoprio viyore witliout 
license, assent, oi' adojition by prince or people; and, 
hence, that by such divine law the clergy of Maryland 
were entitled — as an immediate gift from Christ to 
the church — to all the exemptions from lay jurisdiction 
that had e\cr been enjoyed anywhere by the church of 
Rome. 

Such I'xeiiqttions had been introduced into England 
under the Norman kings, Ijccoming most extensive during 
the reign of Stephen ; and although they were temi)orarily 
narrowed by the Constitutions of Clarendon adopted in the 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 427 

year 1164, yet England was not rid of them until after 
Henry VIII became head of the church. Could they 
have enjoyed those exemptions, the Maryland priests would 
have received large tracts of land from their Indian con- 
verts ; and by having cognizance of testamentary cases, 
they might have indulged in the old abuse of paying 
legacies to the church or other pious causes before paying 
creditors, heirs, or legatees. In this way, therefore, the , 
lord proprietor would have been deprived of much of his 
territory, and would have lost so much control of the gov- 
ernment that toleration and the purpose for which he had 
promised it would have been defeated. 

Upon hearing of the claims of the priests, the lord 
proprietor bestirred himself, made John Lewger his secre- 
tary, and sent him over to assist the governor. Lewger, 
once a Protestant but now a Catholic, had been edu- 
cated at Oxford University, and was well acquainted 
with the history of the struggle in England. As soon 
as he arrived in the province, he entered upon his duties 
with faithfulness and diligence, and gradually gained 
the support of the Assembly against the priests. But 
thereupon the priests absented themselves from the As- 
sembly under pretence of sickness, began to lay their 
complaints as well as their claims before the lord proj^rie- 
tor, and continued to receive land from the Indians. 

Father Copley, in a letter to the lord proprietor, com- 
plained that Lewger held that the church was entitled 
to no privileges by divine law, nor to any privileges what- 
ever except such as the commonwealth granted it. After 
denying this, the reverend father expressed the hope that 
a converted Indian king might be permitted to give him, 
who had helped to save his soul, enough land to build a 
church or a house on, and asked the lord proprietor to 
consider whether he who restricted ecclesiastical liberty 



428 MAinLAXI) AS A IMIOl'KIICTAKY I'KOVINCE 

in this [)()iiit would not incur (lunger of exconiniunication. 
Finally, as the least consideration in favor of himself and 
his fellow-priests, he asked that the church and the 
priests' houses might have the privileges of sanctuary ; 
that, though many ecclesiastical privileges were relin- 
quished for the satisfaction of the home government, the 
priests might decide when and where such relinquishment 
was necessary ; that priests, their domestic servants, and 
at least one-half tlieir planting servants should be exempt 
from public taxation ; and that they might live and trade 
with the Indians without license from the governor.^ 
Nor did the priests fail to gather around them a party 
of laymen in support of their cause ; and what was esj)e- 
cially alarming, the great planter and military leader, 
Thomas Cornwallis, was in that party. He, too, wrote to 
the lord proprietor, saying that the security of his con- 
science was the first condition that he had expected from 
the government, and he declared that he would sacrifice 
himself and all that he possessed in defence of God's honor 
and the church's right rather than willingly consent to 
anything that might not stand with the good con- 
science of a real Catholic. ^ Moreover, the lord pro- 
prietor was informed that the priests had declared to 
Secretary Lewger that they were ready to shed their 
blood in the defence of the faith and the liberty of the 
church. 

After the lord proprietor had received this intelligence 
and had had an interview with Father White, who had 
gone to England, he was more aroused than ever, and 
wrote to the governor the following : " I am satisfied in 
my judgment that they do design my destruction, and 
I have good cause to suspect that if (hey cannot make 
or maintain a party by degrees amongst the English to 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 1G2 H seq. ^ Ibid., p. 172 el seq. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 429 

bring their ends about, they will endeavor to do it by 
the Indians withal under pretence of God's honor and 
the Christian faith, which shall be the mask and vizard 
to hide their other designs withal. If all things that 
clergymen should do upon these pretences should be 
accounted just and to proceed from God, laymen were 
the basest and most wretched slaves upon earth. And 
if the greatest saint upon earth should intrude himself 
into my house against my will, and in despite of me with 
intention to save the souls of my family, but withal give 
me just cause to suspect that he likewise designed my 
temporal destruction, or that being already in my house 
doth actually practise it, although withal he perhaps do 
many spiritual goods, yet certainly I may and ought to 
preserve myself by the expulsion of such an enemy and 
by providing others to perform the spiritual good he 
did. . . . For the law of nature teacheth this, that it 
is lawful for every man in his own defence, vim vi 
repellere.^'' ^ 

But by the time the lord proprietor was writing this, 
his victory over the priests was nearly won. The gov- 
ernor and the secretary had procured the passage of acts 
of assembly whereby the jurisdiction over marriage and 
the cognizance of testamentary cases were assigned to civil 
officers. The lord proprietor had appealed to the higher 
authorities, and Father More had agreed to renounce all 
claim on the part of the Society of Jesus to any exemptions 
from the operation of the law of the land, had executed a 
release in full of all lands acquired by the priests from the 
Indians, had recognized that there could be no valid grant 
of land in the province without the lord proprietor's sanc- 
tion, and had agreed that thereafter no Jesuit priest 
should be sent to Maryland without the lord proprietor's 

1 Calvert Papers, No. 1, p. 217 et seq. 



430 MAllYLAND AS A IMiOl'ini-yrAHV IMIOVINCE 

license. Acting upon this agreement, the hjixl pr(jj)rietor 
recalled the troublesome priests, sent out others to take 
their places, and, in the year 1641, issued new conditions 
of plantation which, in effect, put into force in Maryland 
the prohibitions of all the Statutes of Mortmain that had 
up to that time been enacted in England.^ 

Strictly between Catholics and Protestants there seems 
to have been little disturbance for ten years after the 
lauding of the first colonists. However, in the year 1638, 
one Lewis, a Catholic, rebuked two servants for reading 
a Protestant book and s})()ke offensively of Protestant 
ministers; and for this offence he was line(l l)y the gov- 
ernor and put under bonds to behave better in the future. ^ 
Again, in the year 1642, one Gerrard, also a Catholic, took 
from the chapel at St. Mary's the key as well as some 
books, on the ground that he had some title to the chapel 
and its contents. Thereupon, the Protestants, who it 
seems had enjoyed the use of the chapel, presented the 
Assembly with a complaint against him and prayed for 
redress, and that body found him guilty of a misdemeanor, 
ordered him to return the key and the books, to relin- 
quish all title to them and the chapel, and to pay a fine 
of five hundred pounds of tobacco toward the maintenance 
of the first minister that sliould arrive.^ 

More serious tro\d)le between Catholics and Protestants 
was near. The government continued to be administered 
by Catholics, and the promised toleration act was not 
passed. The consequence was that, soon after the civil 
war l)roke out in the mother country, a Protestant opposi- 

^ .lohnsnn, "The Foundation of Maryland and the Origin of the Act 
concerning Kolifrion." 

2 Boznian, Vol. II. pp. 84, 85. 

3 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1G37-38 to 1G64, 
p. 119. 



RELIGION, THE CHUECH, AND THE CLERGY 431 

tion arose in ^Maryland ; and in that opposition Claiborne 
and Ingle found the principal support of their rebellion. 
While enjoying their temporary triumph, the rebellious 
Protestants presented Parliament with a petition in which 
they complained that the proprietary government, besides 
liaving been generally tyrannical, had by seduction and 
force turned many from the Protestant to the Catholic 
faith. The committee of lords and commons for for- 
eign plantations, which considered the petition, decided 
that the lord proprietor had forfeited his riglits, recom- 
mended that his charter should be declared null and void, 
and further recommended that the government of the 
province should be intrusted to Protestants.^ An ordi- 
nance for those purposes was accordingly drawn up by 
the committee, was presented to Parliament, and was 
passed by the House of Lords. But here the tide turned. 
The rebellion in the province was sup})ressed. The lord 
proprietor obtained a hearing from Parliament, and pre- 
vailed upon that body to stop proceedings against him. 
However, those proceedings of the Maryland Protes- 
tants, together with the progress of affairs in the mother 
country, were not without lasting effect. As a guard 
against the recurrence of such a dangerous juncture, the 
lord proprietor made a Protestant, William Stone, his 
governor, and divided the places in the council equally 
between Catholics and Protestants. At the same time, 
in the interest of toleration, he caused the following 
clause to be inserted in the governor's oath : " I will not 
by myself nor any person directly or indirectly trouble, 
molest, or discountenauce any person whatsoever in the 
said Province professing to believe ift Jesus Christ, and 
in particular any Roman Catholic for or in respect of his 
or her religion or in his or her free exercise thereof 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1630 to l(i07, pp. 164, 165. 



432 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY IMIOVINCE 

within tlie said Province so as they be not unfaithful to 
his said Lordslu}) nor molest nor conspire against the civil 
government established here, nor will I make any differ- 
ence of persons in conferring offices, rewards, or favors 
proceeding from the authority which his said Lordship 
hath conferred upon me as his Lieutenant here for in 
respect of their said religion respectively, but merely as I 
shall find them faithful and well deserving of his said 
Lordship . . . and if any other oilieer or person what- 
soever shall, during the time of my being his said Lord- 
ship's Lieutenant here without my consent or privity, 

* molest or disturb any person within this province pro- 
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ merely for or in respect 
of his or her religion or the free exercise thereof, upon 
notice or complaint thereof made unto me I will apply 
my power and authority to relieve and protect any person 
so molested or troubled whereby he may have right done 
him for any damage which he shall suffer in that kind and 
to the utmost of my power will cause all and every such 
person or persons in that manner to be punished." ^ The 
first provision of this clause was also inserted in the oath 
prescribed for each member of the council. 

Finally, in the year 1G49, before the close of the first 
year of the first Protestant administration, the toleration 

> act was passed. It prescribed the penalty of death and 
confiscation of property for blas[)hemy, for denying Christ 
to be the Son of God, or for unbelief in the Trinity. But 
it directed that no one professing to believe in Jesus 
Christ should be in any way "troubled, molested, or dis- 
countenanced for or in respect of his or her religion or 
in the free exercise thereof," or be in "anyway compelled 
to the belief or exercise of any other religion against his 
or her consent." He who in person or estate wilfully 

1 Proceedings of tlie Council. 1G;36 to 1607, p. 209 et scq. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 433 

wronged, disturbed, or molested any one professing to 
believe in Jesus Christ for or in respect of his or her 
religion or the free exercise thereof, was to be compelled 
to pay treble damages to the party so wronged or molested 
and also to forfeit twenty shillings. Furthermore, the act 
forbade the calling of one another by reviling names, on 
account of religious differences, such as : Heretic, Papist, 
Idolator, Jesuit, Puritan, Independent, Separatist, Lutheran, 
Calvinist, Brownist, Anabaptist, Antinomian, and the like. 
Thus far, then, it appears that the lord proprietor, soon 
after he began to make preparations for sending out his 
first colonists, resolved to promote religious toleration as a - 
means of inducing a greater number of people to become 
his tenants. Having adopted this policy, he intrusted 
the government to officers who were of the Catholic faith ; 
but at the same time he instructed those officers not to - 
offend the Protestants. All went well until the news of 
civil war in the mother country reached the province ; 
for, until then, there are recorded only two instances of 
trouble between Catholics and Protestants, and in dealing 
with those troubles the Catholic officers and the General 
Assembly showed a willingness to protect the Protestants- 
and to punish the offending Catholics. But as the civil 
war progressed, the lord proprietor saw that if he was to 
prevent the loss of his province, he must fill the control- 
ling number of offices with Protestants. He did so, and 
at the same time took care to uphold toleration in general, 
and the Catholics in particular, by the insertion of a 
strongly worded toleration clause in the oath of the gov- 
ernor as well as in that of each member of the council. 
The bulwark in defence of toleration to all professing 
Trinitarian Christianity was made about as complete as a 
legislative body could make it when the General Assembly 
passed the famous toleration act of 1649. 
2f 



434 MARYLAND AS A IMJOI'RIETAUV I'KOVINCE 

Hut wliilu the lord proprietor was striving to guard liis 
own interests by the promotion of religious luirniony and 
harmony between the government of liis province and that 
of the mother country, the Virginia government defied 
tlie liome government and became intolerant toward those 
Virginians who would not conform to the Church of 
_ England. Many of the non-confonnists found a new 
home in Maryland. The home government sent out com- 
missioners to reduce Virginia to submission. The un- 
grateful Puritans, once molested in Virginia, but now — 
in their new home — enjoying the protection of a tolerant 
government, made the despatch of lliis connnission an 
occasion to unite with Claiborne, the arciienemy of Mary- 
land, for the overthrow of the proprietary government. 
^For about four years the province was governed b}- Puritan 
commissioners, and the first Assembly called by them 
passed an act denying protection to Poman Catholics and 
to mend)ers of the Church of England. Oliver Cromwell, 
however, was more tolerant than the Maryland Puritans. 
The lord proprietor found favor in his eyes, and thereby 
the proprietary government was fully restored on condi- 
tion that the toleration act should not be repealedr\ 

Furthermore, as a favor to Quakers, it Avas agreed in 
the first restoration Assembly that any inhal)itant of the 
province might, instead of taking the oath of fidelity, 
subscribe the following engagement, " I, A. B., do 
promise and engage to submit to the autliority of the 
Right Honorable Cecilius Loi'd iKiltiinorc and liis heirs 
within this })rovince of Maryland according to liis patent 
of the said Province, and to his })resent Lieutenant and 
other officers here, by his Lordshi}) appointed to whom 
I will 1)0 aiding and assisting and will not obey or assist 
any here in opposition to them.'"^ 

1 Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, lG:J7-38 to 1604, p. 370. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 435 

Unhappily, — if the charges against them were not 
false, — the more ardent of that sect did not regard this 
as a sufficient concession to them. Under their leaders, 
Thurston and Cole, some of them not only refused to 
subscribe the engagement, but they persuaded others, who 
had snbscribed it, to renounce and disown it. They 
refused to bear arms when there was danger from the 
Indians, and they did all they could to dissuade others 
from doing so. I^liuy would not take the juror's oath or 
give testimony in court. In all things they insisted that 
" they were to be governed by God's law and the light 
within them, and not by man's law." It was, therefore, 
not to be expected that a government, liaving any regard 
for the law of self-preservation, could tolerate such prin- 
ciples ; and, consequently, the governor and council, im 
July, 1(350, passed an order directing that such insubordi- 
nate Quakers as returned after having been once banished 
should be whipped from constable to constable until they 
were again out of the pi'oy-int^.i Happily, it was not 
necessary for the order to be continued after October,- 
1660 ; and it is not certain that there was a single instance 
of its execution. 

'/^he endeavor to maintain toleration while the mind of the 
people was yet so narrow and exclusive met with many ob- 
stacles. The number of Protestants increased faster than 
the number of Catholics. The Puritans who had once 
helped to overthrow the government never became friendly 
to it. Although several of the offices were filled with Prot- 
estants, the lord proprietor, the governor, and a controlling - 
number of the council were Catholics. The popular branch 
of the legislature was Protestant, while all the other 
branches were Catholic ; and hence a growiug political 
opposition was combined with religious differences to 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1636 to 1667, p. 362. 



436 MARYLAND AS A I'KOl'ltlETAKY PltOVINCE 

increase the antipathy between Catholics and Protestants. 
There were those in the lower house who desired a law 
for the maintenance of ministers, l)ut the very mention 
of it aroused bitter feeling. The population was too 
sparse and divided among too many religious sects for an 
adequate maintenance of ministers by voluntary contribu- 
tions. Religious discord was tlie great obstacle to the 
passing of a bill for founding a school or college. Reli- 
gious worship was consequently neglected, and chihlren 
grew up in ignorance and superstition. Catholicism 
flourished at the expense of Protestantism. The drudgery 
of tobacco culture was depressing rather than inspiring ; 
and the people became so morally depraved that an out- 
cry against the conditions reached the mother country. 
In the year 1676 the Rev. John Yeo, in a letter to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote: "There are in this 
province ten or twelve counties and in them at least 
twenty thousand souls and })ut three Protestant ministers 
of us that are conformal)le to the doctrine and disci})line 
of the Church of England. . . . No care is taken or pro- 
vision made for building up Christians in the Protestant 
religion for want of which not only many daily fall away to 
Popery, Quakerism, or fanaticism, but also the Lord's day 
is profaned, religion despised, and all notorious vices com- 
mitted so that it is become a Sodom of uncleanness and 
a pest house of iniquity." ^ 

Mr. Yeo desired that a tax should be levied for the 
maintenance of ministers of the Cliurch of England, and 
he undoubtedly exaggerated the evils of the situation. 
But however that may be, he was instrumental in 
causing the home government to look witli ill favor on 
the pro[)rietary government an<l to interfere with the same. 
The Archbishop of Canterbury referred the letter to the 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, pp. 130, 131. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 437 

Bishop of London, who, in turn, referred it to the lord 
proprietor. In his reply the lord proprietor stated that, 
as at least three-fourths of the inhabitants were Presby- 
terians, Independents, Anabaptists, and Quakers, it would 
be a most difficult task to prevail upon the lower house to 
assent to a law for compelling so large a proportion of the 
people to maintain ministers of another persuasion ; and 
he further stated that he thought it best for the members 
of each sect to support their ministers by voluntary con- 
tributions.^ This reply being unsatisfactory, the matter 
was laid before the king's privy council ; and that body 
requested the lord proprietor to do something for the 
maintenance of ministers of the Church of England and 
to put all offices and firearms in the hands of Protes- 
tants. But the lord proprietor did little more than to 
show that about one-half of the offices had been held, 
by Protestants and to contend that, by the charter, he 
alone, and not the king or the Bishop of London, had 
the right to choose ministers. He could not, however, 
stem the tide of Protestant opposition. The more unscru- 
pulous spread a rumor that the Catholics had formed a 
plot with the Indians to slaughter all Protestants. A 
Protestant revolution in the mother country placed a 
Protestant king and queen on the throne, but tlie Catholic 
government of Maryland failed to proclaim them. The 
result was that the lord proprietor's Catholic govern- 
ment was overthrown, and in its place the new king 
and queen set up a Protestant government of their 
own. 2 

The first Assembly convened by the royal government 
passed the act, in the year 1692, for the establishment, in 
Maryland, of the Church of England."] By authority and 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, pp. 132, 133, 252, 253, 
261, 262, 263. 2 Siipra, pp. 35-42. 



438 MAIIVLAND AS A PKOPKIETARY PROVINCE 

direction of this act, eiicli county was divided into par- 
islu's, and vestrymen were chosen. The vestry of each 
parish was made a corporate body of trustees and directed 
to huihl a church. And a tax of forty pounds of tobacco 
per i)oll was to be levied each year for tlic maintenance 
of the minister, or, when there was no minister, for such 
pious purposes as the vestry shouhl direct.' 

In the year 1G94 a supplementary act was passed. One 
year later, both the principal and the supi)lementary 
act were superseded by a third. It seems that the crt)wn 
disallowed this one ; and so, in the year 1696, a fourth 
act was [)asse(l. But in it was the follow iui^ objectionable 
clause, "-That the Church of England, within the Prov- 
ince, shall enjoy all and singular her Rights, Privileges, 
and Freedoms, as it is now, or shall be at any time here- 
after, established by Law in the Kingdom ol England : 
And that his Majesty's Subjects of this Province shall en- 
joy all their Rights and Liberties, according to the Laws 
and Statutes of the Kingdom of England, in all Matters 
and Causes where the Laws of the Province are silent." ^ 
The Quakers presented a petition against the act. The 
Catholics fought it, though in secret. And sO, in Novem- 
ber, 1699, the crown disallowed it, alleging as the reason 
that the clause quoted above was of another nature than 
that set forth in the title. But the clergy of the once 
established church, realizing their own weakness and the 
strength of their enemies, had implored the Bishop of 
London to send them a su|)erintendent, commissary, or 
suffragan, invested with suflicient authority to redress 
what was amiss and supply what was wanting. The 
Assembly had done its part toward providing for the 
maintenance of such an officer by praying that to his 
oiiice should be annexed that of judge of probate — worth 

1 i^iipra, pp. 410-412. 2 l. H. J., July 3-10, 1696. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 439 

about X300 sterling per annum. The Bishop had re- 
sponded by appointing Dr. Thomas Bray to be his com- 
missary in Maryland. For a few years Dr. Bray remained 
in England, laboring diligently in the endeavor to provide 
the province with parochial libraries and more ministers ; 
but as soon as the crown had disallowed the act of 1696, 
he hastened to Maryland to direct the passage of another. 
He received a hearty welcome, and seems to have exerted 
much influence with the Assembly, which, but for his 
encouragement, miglit not have passed another church 
act. As it was, such an act was passed in the year 1700 ; 
but, strange to say, its authors were guilty of an over- 
sight, or else they were so regardless of the power of the 
enemy that they struck a blow at all religious dissent by 
inserting a clause requiring the use of the book of com- 
mon prayer " in every church or house of public worship." 
Dr. Bray was sent to England to repel the assaults of the 
enemy and to secure if possible the crown's assent. His 
presence was needed, for both Quakers and Catholics 
were again busy. The one objectionable clause was the 
vulnerable point. When it was seen that the act would 
not receive the crown's assent as it then stood. Dr. Bray 
asked permission of the board of trade to have a new bill 
— to be drawn according to the instructions of the said 
board — sent to Maryland for passage by the Assembly 
without amendment. This was granted. Dr. Bray's bill 
became a law in the year 1701-02, and with but few 
later amendments it remained in force until the Revolution 
of 1776. 

,'As an addition to the law of 1692, the law of 1702 
required the annual election, by the freeholders, of two 
church wardens for each parish, and the appointment, by 
the vestry, of a parish register. It required tlie vestry to 
meet once a month. It changed the tenure of office of 



440 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETAUV PROVIN'CE 

vestrymen. It authorized the vestry and churcli wardens, 
when additional money was needed for parochial purposes, 
to ask the county court to levy a parochial tax not exceed- 
ing ten pounds of tobacco per poll in any one year. It 
regulated marriages. It directed that the minister should 
be ap[)()inted, presented, or inducted by the governor. It 
forbade any minister to hold more than one parish at any 
one time, unless, by an agreement of the vestries of two 
adjacent parishes, he should be permitted to hold both. 
Finally, it not only prescribed toleration to Quakers and 
all other Protestant dissenters, but it removed the political 
disabilities of the Quakers. 

Not only was this institution established in the face of 
an alert opposition, but until the end of the colonial era it 
was the object of repeated attacks. The first and princi- 
pal trouble lay in the want of a responsible authority to 
discipline the clergy. The appointment of Dr. Bray was a 
step well taken. During his short stay in the province he 
summoned the clergy to a general visitation at Annapolis, 
and there gave strong proof of his zeal and power to rid 
the province of all clergymen of profligate lives. But not 
long after his return to England he was called to other 
labors, and never came back to resume his work in ^lary- 
land. He, however, felt that the church was greatly in 
need of a bishop to continue the work which he, as com- 
missary, had begun, and for the necessary maintenance 
proposed that the bishop be given the office of judge of 
probate and also a well-stocked plantation. He even 
bargained with the lord proprietor for five hundred acres 
of land, and collected considerable money toward paying 
for the same. He tried to get a bill passed by Parliament 
for establishing a suffragan bishoji. Failing in this, he, 
after consultation with the Bishop of London, named a man 
to succeed him as commissary ; and it was further agreed 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY ' 441 

between the Bishop of London and himself that the new 
commissary should have the right to induct ministers, 
while the governor should retain the right of presenting 
them.i 

But at this stage in the proceedings, Colonel John 
Seymour was appointed governor. Before he embarked 
the plan for establishing the office of commissary was sub- 
mitted to him ; for its success depended upon his willing- 
ness to forego the right of induction, and upon his support 
of the proposal to make the commissary the judge of pro- 
bate. Unfortnnately for the future of the church, Sey- 
mour was one of those incompetent war governors, so 
common in the royal provinces ; and upon being told of 
the plan, he seemed to fear that Dr. Bray had been trying 
to take advantage of him, flew into a passion, and was more 
than once afterward heard to declare that he would have 
no commissary in the province.^ Had he acted less self- 
ishly and more discreetly in this matter, perhaps he 
would not have felt called upon, the year before he died, 
to address the following words to the Assembly, "And 
now. Gentlemen, give me leave to tell you it's high time 
for you that represent the whole Province to look into 
the many Immoralities of this poor deluded Country, 
where Drunkenness, Adultery, Sabbath-breaking, and Per- 
jury are a Jest, horrid Murders stifled, and the Malefactors 
glory in it, Treason made a Trifle, and the Abettors 
caressed, Magistrates grow careless, and the Offenders 
impudent."^ 

At the time these words were spoken, several of the 

1 Perry, Papers relating to the History of the Church in Maryland, 
p. 57 et seq. 

2 Hawks, "Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United 
States," Vol. II, p. 124 et seq. 

■5 L. H. J., November 29, 1708. 



442 MARYLAND AS A J'ROPKIETARY PROVINCE 

clergy of the established clmrch — paid, by a tax on the 
people, to preach righteousness — were leading such dis- 
solute lives that the Assembly made its first attempt, in 
its own way, to restrain their vices. A bill was intro- 
duced which [)rovided for the establishment of a spiritual 
court, to be composed of the governor and three laymen. 
The court was to have cognizance of all cases of immo- 
rality on the part of a clergyman and non-residence in his 
parish for thirty days at any one time ; and it Avas to 
have power to deprive the offender of his living and 
suspend him from the ministry. The bill passed both 
houses ; but the governor withheld his assent on the 
ground that he had no instruction from the home govern- 
ment concerning the matter. ^ The movement to establish 
the court, even though it failed at this time, Avas not 
without elTect. Some of the ])etter clergymen wrote to^ 
the Bishop of London about it, described it as "a pres- 
byterian form of ministers and lay elders," and repre- 
sented that the es(al)lishnient of it would raise an effectual 
bar to tlie introduction of Episcopacy, which thty still 
desired and hoped for. 

Governor Seymour died in the year ITOU, and for (he 
next five yeai-s the province was without a governor. Then, 
in the year 1 714, (lovernor Hart arrived. It was hoped by 
some that lie had come with power to remove such of the 
clergy as were a scandal to religion ; but in this they were 
disappointed. However, the new governor manifested an 
interest in the church by causing the clergy to meet at 
.Annapolis, in the first year of liis administration, tliat 
-they might become Ijetter acquainted with one another, 
and that he might ascertain wlio among them were wortliy, 
and wlio umvortliy.^ To his discomfiture, soon afti'r lie 
began to show tliis attention to ecclesiastical affairs, sev- 

' Hawks, pp. 128-i:]l. " Perry, pp. 77-82. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 443 

eral vestries applied to him to hear charges against their 
ministers. Those made against Rev. Tibbs of St. Paul's 
Parish, in Baltimore County, were of so serious a nature 
that the governor consulted with some of the clergy as to 
what should be done. They advised that Tibbs be asked 
to reform his manner of living and reconcile himself to 
his parishioners, that if he did not do so, he and his ac- 
cusers should be given a hearing, and that all the proceed- 
ings in his case should be transmitted to the Bishop of 
London for determination. But the vestry thought this 
would take too long, and, as the governor, on the further 
advice of some of the clergy, decided that he had not the 
ecclesiastical authority which would warrant his summon- 
ing the offender before him and the council for a hearing, 
nothing of consequence was done in this or any other case. 

Yet when the governor saw how powerless he was to 
serve the church directly, he wrote to the Bishop of 
London that many of the clergy were leading notoriously 
scandalous lives, and that many of the laity of the estab- 
lished church were, as a consequence, becoming Catholic . 
or Protestant dissenters. He said he wished Maryland 
had a suffragan bishop, but recommended, as second choice, 
the appointment of two commissaries, and named Jacob 
Henderson as a fit person to fill that office on the western 
shore and Christopher Wilkinson to fill it on the eastern 
shore. 

The bishop responded by making the appointments just 
as the governor had recommended. But, again, the want 
of both discretion and sincerity on the part of the gov- 
ernor, the great difference in temperament between the 
two commissaries, as well as the mistakes of both, and the 
abhorrence of the Maryland gentry for episcopal authority, 
quickly checked the power and influence of these two 
representatives of the bishop. Not long after receiving 



444 MARYLAND AS A PllOPlllETAKY PKOV^INCE 

his commission, each commissary held a visitation of the 
clergy within his jurisdiction. Mr. Wilkinson proceeded 
with caution and moderation, for he felt that his superior's 
authority in Maryland was not yet well established. He 
was of the opinion that a recognition of the commissarial 
authority by an act of assembly was necessary. He was 
anxious about the pay which he was to receive for dis- 
charging the duties of his office.^ And, therefore, he 
limited the work of his visitation to moral suasion and the 
making of inquiries. Mr. Henderson, on the other liand, 
was possessed of too much zeal" to entertain doubt as to 
his authority ; and moral suasion was, for him, too mild a 
remedy to be applied to men in holy orders who were 
drunken and licentious. He proceeded to make his visi- 
tation an ecclesiastical court, and to sit in judgment over 
the culprits. 2 He requested each clergyman to produce 
his letters of orders and his license from the Bishop of 
London. The notorious Tibbs came to the visitation, but 
did not produce the said letters and license. He was 
excused until an adjourned meeting, and was also advised 
of the C()ni[)laint against him. But he did not appear at 
the adjourned meeting ; and Ijefore anything had been 
done with him, Henderson had provoked a general ill 
feeling toward himself by retaining in his possession the 
letters of orders and license belonfrino: to a Rev. Mr. Hall. 
Regarding this as an act of usurpation. Hall demanded 
the return of his property. This being refused, he ob- 
tained from the governor a warrant for its delivery. 

The frailties of human nature were then given free play. 
Hart and Henderson, who had up to this time been waim 
friends, became bitter enemies. The clergy in general and 
the other commissary in particular were incensed at Mr. 
Henderson's high-handed measure. Many influential 

1 Terry, pp. 86, 87, 106-108. 2 ji,ia., p. 92 et seq 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 445 

people, who from the beginning had been strongly opposed to 
the establishment of any episcopal anthority in the province, 
could now more easily convince others that it was danger- 
ous to liberty. Yet at the very time when the opposition 
to the power of the commissaries was thus stirred up, a 
bill for the recognition and strengthening of tlieir authority 
was introduced into the Assembly. The Bishop of London 
had written that he was not in favor of thus mixing his 
authority with that of the Assembly. But since the ap- 
pointment of the commissaries the members of the As- 
sembly had shown their opposition by reducing marriage 
fees and by talk about further decreasing the income to 
some of the clergy through a division of parishes, par- 
ticularly that of the commissary on the eastern shore. 
Then, too, Hart was not a strong man. He was prob- 
ably only too glad to please Wilkinson, if by so doing he 
thought he could annoy Henderson. At the same time 
he was too fond of popularity to sacrifice it, through too 
strong support of an unpopular measure, even for the good 
of the church. Apparently no other preparation for the 
success of the bill was made than to request Mr. Henderson 
not only to stop proceedings against the offending clergy- 
men, but to reconcile himself to all his brethren. Then, 
when the Assembly was in session, Governor Hart, instead 
of making himself responsible for the measure and plead- 
ing boldly and vigorously for its passage, called a meeting 
of the clergy, asked them to state what they wanted of the 
Assembly, and so used men in holy orders — obnoxious 
because of the immorality of several of their number — 
for a shield to protect himself from such attacks as the 
bill might incite the lower house to make.^ The clergy 
asked that the Assembly should recognize the commissarial 
authority ; that something be allowed for the maintenance 

1 Perry, p. 102 ft scq. 



440 MAUVLANl) AS A rilOl'Kl KTAK V I'KOVINCK 

of a register ; that the sheriff should be required to serve 
citations ; and tliat church wardens should be allowed their 
expenses for attending visitations.^ A bill for granting 
all these requests passed the ui)per house. But in the 
lower house about one-third of the members were dis- 
senters, and of the other two-thirds many were of the 
gentry and much opposed to all forms of episcopal autlior- 
ity. Then, too, tlie more unscrupulous among the clergy 
themselves worked in secret for the defeat of the l)ill. 
The opposition was successful. The bill was lost. Hart 
and Wilkinson ascribed the loss to Henderson, while 
Henderson ascribed the loss to Hart and Wilkinson.^ 
During the remainder of Hart's administration Hender- 
son could do nothing as commissary ; and the whole 
proceeding with respect to the lost bill only served to 
beget a belief among the people that episcopal authority 
in Maryland rested on no well-founded claim. 

In the year 1720 Governor Hart was succeeded by 
(iovernor C'harles Calvert, and then each of the com- 
missaries held a few helpful visitations : l)ut soon the 
death of the Bishop of London made void their com- 
missions. Mr. Henderson, in stating to the new liishop of 
London the needs of the church, wrote, " What I would 
propose as the greatest service that can be done for 
religion and the ease of the Clergy is that a Bishop 
should be sent for this Province to reside in it, and a 
charge it will be sufficient for any one man."^ ]\Ir. Wilkin- 
son also urged that some person be sent over with episcopal 
or delegated authority. 

But while these clergymen were asking for a bisliop, 
the lower house, under the leadership of Thomas liordley, 
was preparing to pass a l)ill for establishing a s})iritual 
court to be composed of laymen. When this became 

1 Terry, p. 105. - Ihid., pp. l(l(;-112. '^ Ihid., p. 138. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 447 

known, the clerg}'-, in a body, protested, saying that sucli 
a jurisdiction would be inconsistent with the lord pro- 
prietor's charter, repugnant to the laws of Great Britain, 
destructive of the constitution of the Church of England, 
and that they could not submit to it as it would be al- 
together contrary to their ordination vow.^ To this pro- 
test, the lower house replied, in part, as follows, " It hath 
appeared to us that some clergymen within this province 
have behaved themselves in a manner so inconsistent with 
their character that instead of being guides to the people 
and preventing their being misled by Popish Priests and 
other enemies of the Church of England, their misbehavior 
and ill example have been the most prevailing motives with 
several weak people to forsake the communion of tlie best 
church in the world and with others to look upon all reli- 
gion as imposture and clieat, and that the irreguhirities com- 
plained of are presumed to be owing in great measure to the 
want of some judicature to correct the offenders."^ Put 
having made this reply, the lower house turned from the 
threat to pass the court bill to an attempt to starve the 
clergy through reducing by one-fourth their income of 
forty pounds of tobacco per poll and by the division of 
parishes. 

As these attempts to lessen the income of the clergy were 
being made, the Bishop of London invited the Rev. Mr. 
Colebatch to come to England that he might there receive 
consecration and then return to Maryland as his Lordshiji's 
suffragan. It seems probable that the bishop expected to 
obtain the royal authority for such a consecration after the 
arrival of Mr. Colebatch. But when tliis plan for establish- 
ing episcopal authority l^ecame known, a writ of we exeat was 
issued, and the departure from the i)rovince of the prospec- 
tive suffragan was thus proliibitcd.^ However, after the 

1 Perry, p. 247 et seq. 2 jf^ia., p. 248. 3 Ibkl, p. 269. 



448 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

hill lor iiHliuiiio- the forty per poll to thirty per poll had 
])u.ssed the Assembly, the clergy resolved to send Hender- 
son to England to represent their grievances and to seek 
redress ; and he not only obtained the redress, by caus- 
ing the lord proprietor to disallow the grievous act, but 
returned in the year 1730 as commissary of the whole 
province. 

Yet the very success of this mission to England made 
all the more intense the bitter feeling which for some time 
had existed between laity and clergy, especially of the 
gentry toward the commissary himself. "Some of tlie 
leaders in the warfare against the church," says Hawks, 
" had so spirited up the people to resentment that threats 
were openly made of mobbing the commissary ; but Jacob 
Henderson was not a man to be frightened by threats or 
even by blows ; for on one occasion, soon after his return, 
he was assailed at the house of a gentleman by one of that 
magnanimous class of heroes who are willing to purchase 
a reputation for courage, at a small risk, by bullying or 
assaulting a clergyman, whose hands they know are tied 
by his profession as a minister of the religion of peace. 
In this instance, however, the coward reckoned without 
his host. He struck Mr. Henderson ; the blow was 
patiently borne without retaliation. Emboldened by a 
forbearance which he could not understand, and there- 
fore mistook for timidity, he struck him a second time, 
whereupon he received such a handling as taught him 
thereafter not too hastily to take for granted a deficiency 
of either courage or strength in a clergyman." Other 
clergymen, at this time, received blows from one who was 
both a member of the lower house and a justice of the 
peace ; and when the clergy, in a body, complained to 
the governor of this barbarous treatment of some of their 
number, he was so far from being disposed to punish the 



RELIGION", THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 449 

offenders that he himself threatened to kick the commis- 
sary, i 

The lower house, under the able leadership of Daniel 
Dulany, had long contended that the people of Maryland 
were entitled to all the laws and statutes of the mother 
country except such as were excluded either by express 
words in the said statutes or by the acts of the Assembly 
of Maryland. Reasoning along the same line, Commissary 
Henderson held that the laws and usages of the church in 
the mother country extended, in full force, to Maryland. 
But the lord proprietor's charter expressly granted to him 
the " Patronages and Advowsons of all churches." Then, 
too, the lower house, in making its contention for the Eng- 
lish laws and statutes, was seeking only such security from 
oppression as English documents, like Magna Carta and the 
Bill of Rights, alone could give ; but when Mr. Henderson 
made a like contention for the extension of the laws of the 
church, Daniel Dulany and Thomas Bordley told the people 
of the tyrannical deeds of William Laud, Bishop of London 
and Archbishop of Canterbury under King Charles I, which 
had driven some of their forefathers to seek freedom in the 
New World. 2 

Nevertheless, undaunted in the face of this open hostil- 
ity, Mr. Henderson held visitations and deprived one of the 
drunken clergymen of his living. But, thereupon, some 
of the lawyers questioned his authority. The Bishop of 
London had obtained from King George I a commission 
which made himself diocesan of the colonies, and of this 
Commissary Henderson had an exemplified copy.^ But 
King George K was now upon the throne, and the 
commissary had no copy of the new king's commission 
to the bishop. He applied for it ; but before receiving 

1 Perry, pp. 283, 300 ; Hawks, pp. 20G, 207. 2 Hawks, p. 2n. 

3 Perry, pp. 300-308. 
2g 



450 MAUVLANI) AS A I'llol'Kl KTA K V I'KOVIN'CE 

it, a dispute liad arisen l)et\veen the lord proprietor and 
the bisliop. During his visit to his province, in the year 
1732-33, the lord proprietor had been friendly to the 
clergy, and had done much to restore a better feeling 
between clergy and laity. But while in tlie province 
and after his return to England he contended that his 
charter gave him the sole riglit of ap})ointing, presenting, 
and inducting ministers, and that the Bishop of London 
was, therefore, entitled to no jurisdiction therein.^ The 
bishop did not see lit to press tlie matter. Commissary 
Henderson was left without settled authority. The 
clergyman whom he had deprived of a living was advised 
to sue him for damages or else sue the sheriff for the forty 
per poll in case it was refused. Under these circumstances 
Mr. Henderson thought it useless for him to proceed against 
the more notorious but more wealtliy Tibbs ; and by the 
year 1734, realizing that he liad no real power, he ceased to 
act as commissary. 2 From tliat time until the overthrow 
of the i)roi)rietary government there was no episcopal 
anthoi'ity in Maryland. 

'J'lnis did CliarU's, the fourth lord jtroprietor, shut out 
from his province the disci[)linary church law of the 
mother country ; and in the year 1748, when the lower 
house, by a vote of thirty to fifteen, passed another bill 
for disciplining the clergy, the same lord proprietor's 
appointees in the upper liouse rejected it. Frederick, the 
fifth lord proprietor, in the second year of his administra- 
tion, reserved to himself, alone, the choice of ministers, 
not allowing even the governor to exercise that right. 
One year later he instructed the governor to forbid the 
clergy, for the future, to assemble themselves together. 
At the same time, attem[)ts to divide parishes were 
resisted ; hence, with the increase in population, many 

1 Perry, pp. .313, ;531. •^ Hawks, p. 222. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 451 

of the ministers were well paid ; and the degenerate 
Frederick found, in his charter right of patronages and 
advowsons of churches, an ojiportunity to give places of 
profit to his ignoble friends." 

But no matter how ignoble, profligate, or criminal a 
minister was, after he had once been inducted into a 
parish, there was no power to remove him or deprive him 
of his living. He was in for life or until he found some- 
thing that suited him better. After being inducted, one 
minister, for example, spent the most of twenty years in 
jail ; and, even while at large, he is said to have been so 
infamously profligate that it was a discredit to any person 
of character to admit him to the regard and notice of a 
common acquaintance.^ Another minister — one of those 
who had been within the inner circle of Lord Baltimore's 
friends, — by his arrogance, impudence, and greed, pro- 
voked the implacable resentment of several of the leading 
men of the province, particularly some members of the 
powerful Dulany family, and then carried a pistol, even 
into his pulpit, that he might defy his enemies.^ 

This was more than the people would forever endure. 
In the year 17(38 both houses of Assembly passed another 
bill for establishing a spiritual court to be composed of 
the governor, three clergymen, and three laymen. Gov- 
ernor Sharpe, apprehending that the lord proprietor might 
dislike the bill, and yet be under some difficulty in reject- 
ing it,* obeyed his superior's instruction and withheld his 
assent. But, thereupon, the Assembly declared that they 
would push the measure every session until it became a 
law.^ Eden became governor one year later. Before he 
left England, the lord proprietor had stated that he had 

1 Gilmore Papers. 2 C. R., April 29, 1708. 

3 Gilmore Papers; Maryland Gazette, 1708; Sharpe's Correspondence, 
Vol. Ill, p. 432 et seq. * Supra, p. 220. ^ Perry, pp. 337, 339. 



452 MARYLAND AS A TROPRIETARY PROVINCE 

no objection to the l)ill ; and the Bisliop of London, upon 
bein<^ consulted in the matter, informed the new governor 
that he had no connnission of superintendency over the 
clergy of America. One way to a government of the 
clergy was, therefore, at last clear. 

In vain some of the clergy at this time addressed the 
governor and drew up addresses to the lord proprietor, 
the Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
the king in the hope that their request for a bishop might 
be granted. Governor Eden told those clergymen that 
the livings of Maryland were donatives and that conse- 
quently there was not only no need of a bishop, but that a 
bishop could have no authority .^ His reasoning was more 
than questionable, but it so disheartened the hopeful that 
they did not send their addresses to England. ^ 

On the other hand, the assembly bill for disciplining 
the clergy became a law in the year 1771. It required 
every minister to take the several oaths to the govern- 
ment within four months after his induction or appoint- 
ment. It directed that any minister who neglected to do 
this, or who made any simoniacal contract, should be dis- 
abled from holding his place, benefice, or church living. 
It directed tliat any minister who absented himself from 
his parish for thirt}' days together, or for sixty days alto- 
gether during any one year, should forfeit £10 sterling. 
Einally, whenever the majority of the vestry and church 
wardens of any parish complained to the governor that 
their minister neglected to officiate, or that he was lead- 
ing a notoriously or scandalously immoral life, the gov- 
ernor, with the advice of the council, was to appoint a 
commission to be composed of the governor himself, — if 
he was of the Church of England, and, if not, then the 
first member of council who was, — three ministers in 

1 C. R., September 15, 1770. » Hawks, p. 256 et scq. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 453 

actual possession of a Maryland benefice, and three lay- 
men of the Church of England ; and this commission was 
authorized to hear the case, and, upon finding the minister 
guilty, to admonish, suspend, or totally deprive him of 
his living. 

Not only was the church left, for so many years, weak 
and offensive for want of government ; but the lack of 
foresight in its founders, in providing for the maintenance 
of the clergy, caused an increase of violence in the attacks 
that were made upon it in later years. When those found- 
ers made the forty per poll provision, they were looking 
back to the Mosaic law and seeking an approximate equiv- 
alent for the tenth. Their prophetic vision, however, failed 
them. They did not see that in the future many of the 
parishioners would raise no tobacco, that for the good of 
the whole country such parishioners should be permitted 
to pay in money, and, above all, that without legislative 
regulation the tobacco trade would be ruined and tobacco 
be of no use to the man in holy orders except to smoke or 
chew. Furthermore, tlie founders failed to make provi- 
sion for changing the size of the several parishes so as to 
insure, with the increase in population, the payment of 
equal regard to the proper maintenance of the minister 
and to the accommodation of the parishioners. 

When first laid out, many of the parishes were from 
thirty to forty and some of them even fifty miles long.^ 
They were sparsely populated. Much poor tobacco was 
raised ; and it seems to have been quite usual for the 
planter to save the poorest for the minister. In the year 
1696 the clergy complained that their tobacco sold for but 
from one-fourth to one-half as much as other tobacco.^ 
No attempt was made to interfere with the law for levying 
the forty per poll until about the year 1728 ; and even at 

1 Perry, pp. 190-230. 2 Hawks, p. 80. 



454 MAUVLAND AS A IMtOlMM KTAllV I'KOVINCE 

that time the income to most of the ministers was pitifully 
small. Yet, for several years, for want of a law to regu- 
late the tobacco industry, it threatened to become still 
smaller. The fees of ollicers had been reduced about one- 
fourth in the year 1719 ; and in the year 1725 the lower 
house had fought hard to reduce them one-half. The 
immorality of a few of the clergy caused the whole body 
to be despised ; and when the lower house had proposed 
to establish a lay jurisdiction over them for their better 
behavior, they remonstrated. The people were at last 
crying aloud for a law to improve the tobacco trade. 
Tiuu-efore, when the Assembly, in the year 1728, passed a 
bill for limiting the number of tobacco plants, there Avas 
some appearance of justice, in spite of the law of 1702, in 
inserting a clause for making the forty per poll payable at 
one-fourth reduction, or in money at the rate of ten shill- 
ings per hundred weight of tobacco. But suspicion as to 
the real motive was strengthened when the same Assembly 
passed other bills for dividing several of the parishes ; and 
it was on this occasion that the Rev. Mr. Henderson 
was sent to England. He procured the lord prt)prietor's 
disallowance of all these bills, and also caused the pro- 
prietor to order the governor not to pass any bill, for the 
future, which would be an infi'ingement of the clnireh act 
of 1702, or which would be a violation of English law and 
custom by dividing a parish during the lifetime of an in- 
cumbent without the ineunil)eut's consent.^ 

Nevertheless, the year in which this order was received, 
both houses passed anothci' bill for limiting the number 
of tobacco plants. It required the payment of only thirty 
pounds of tobacco per poll, provided that in place of tlie 
other ten pounds grain was paid at the rate of one bushel 
of wheat for forty-two pounds of tobacco, one bushel of 

1 Perry, pp. 258, 202, 201, 207, i^;u. 270, 280, 282. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 455 

corn or oats for twenty pounds of tobacco, or one bushel 
of barley for twenty-four pounds of tobacco. ^ This bill 
was signed by the governor and received the lord proprie- 
tor's assent, much to the discomfiture of the clergy; but 
as it did not successfully regulate the tobacco industry, it 
remained a law for only two years. 

After its expiration, Maryland planters were for several 
years subject to no law with respect to either the quantity 
or the quality of the tobacco which they put upon the 
market, Avhile the Virginia planters became subject to a 
law which much im[)roved the quality of the tobacco in 
that province. The result was that the Maryland tobacco 
trade reached the brink of ruin, and that the clergy 
became quite willing to have a law like that of Virginia, 
even though it gave them only thirty pounds of inspected 
tobacco per poll from the planters and 3.s. 9d. per poll 
from those who made no tobacco. This law, the famous 
inspection law, was made in the year 1747. It was not 
long before it caused the price of tobacco to rise to such 
an extent that those who were permitted to pay in money 
— the wheat growers, iron workers, and others, who con- 
tributed far more to the welfare of humanity than did the 
tobacco planters — were taxed less in real value than were 
those who were obliged to pay in tobacco. 

Yet, after this good law had been in force five years, one 
of the ungrateful clergymen, in a letter to the Bishop of 
London, acknowledged that the price of tobacco had ad- 
vanced since its enactment, but, instead of being thankful 
for this, he characterized as " lazy " those who were per- 
mitted to pay in money ; he grumbled and said that the 
law had already "picked his pocket" of X200, and he 
asked that sometliing be done to have it annulled. ^ 

The law was continued, however, until the year 1770. 

1 Perry, p. 281 et scq. 2 jua,^ pp. 320, 328. 



456 MARYLAND AS A I'lM IPI; lETAKY PROVINCE 

By causing the price of tobacco to advance, it also caused 
the number of taxable persons in each of the several parishes 
to increase the more rapidly. Before it had been in opera- 
tion thirty years the clergy of Maryland were better paid 
than those in any other colony in America. In the year 
1707 there were only two parishes in which the clergy- 
man's annual income from the poll tax was less than £100 
sterling, and only eight in which it was less than <£150 
sterling ; in sixteen it was more than X200 sterling, and 
in All Saints Parish in Frederick County it was already 
more than £450 sterling, and increasing at the rate of at 
least <£50 a year.^ So lucrative had many of the benefices 
become that it was not uncommon for a clergyman, after 
officiating only a few years, to resign in favor of another, 
upon an express understanding that when the latter was 
inducted, he sliould pay annually a part of his stipend to 
the former, who thereupon quietly sat dov, n in idleness. ^ 
Worst of all, the renegade Bennet Allen, the most 
brazen faced among them, after fighting hard that he 
might enjoy the possession of two benefices at the same 
time, finally got possession of the most lucrative one 
in the whole province. For a few years Thomas Bacon, 
a most highly esteemed, learned, and worthy gentleman, 
was the minister in All Saints Parish. As he, in the year 
1768, was about to be laid in his grave, Allen wrote to 
Governor Sharpe the following: "I have this moment 
received intelligence that Mr. Bacon was dangerously 
ill, and the person who l)ronglit the news expects he is 
dead l)y tliis time. As my Lord Baltimore designed this 
Parish for me, and intended for that purpose negativing 
the Division had it been proposed by tlie Assembly, I 
humbly request from your Excellency my succeeding to 
that living upon confirmation of the news ; and if it is 

1 Terry, p. 3:]G ; Etkiis, p. 49. 2 Hawks, p. 282. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 457 

done immediately, the Division (should it be agitated) 
would not affect my incumbency. Your Excellency's 
compliance with my request (which at all events will 
give me a certain provision) will greatly add to the 
many obligations I am already under to you, etc. 

" Bennet Allen."! 

So, such a man was inducted into a parish where he 
received from £550 to £1000 sterling per annum ; and 
the most of this money was paid by the industrious 
Palatines, — a people who, driven from their European 
home because of their religious faith, had, in their new 
home, made the forest give way to the wheat field, had 
opened iron mines, and had founded a church of their 
own. The Dulanys — one of whom Allen later killed 
in a duel ^ — also had large vested interests in this 
parish. No wonder that fear caused the preacher to 
carry a pistol with him into his pulpit. 

The inspection law was not revived in the year 1770, 
because when the lower house insisted upon a reduction 
of fees, the upper house would not permit it. When the 
law had expired, the governor issued his proclamation for 
continuing the old table of fees ; and what a tumultuous 
uprising this occasioned, has been seen.^ No wonder, then, 
that upon the expiration of this law, the people also rose 
up in war against the clergy ; for by the law of 1702 they 
were again entitled to tlie forty pounds of tobacco per poll. 
The act for disciplining the clergy had not yet been passed. 
Only the month before the inspection law expired, some 
of the clergy had made the people angry by asking the 
governor to join with them in the request for a bishop. 
For the past three or four years many parishioners had 
been vehemently contending that, as the church was 

1 Gilmore Papers. ^ ii)i(i. ; Dulaiiy Tapers. ^ Supra, pp. 192, 399. 



4r)8 MARYLAND AS A PIlOrRIETAIt V J'UUVIXCE 

supported at their expense, the vestry, as their repre- 
sentatives, was entitled to the right of appointing the 
minister; and in support of their contention they stated 
that in many of the treatises on the canon law and in 
Coke's Littleton it was asserted tliat the right of pres- 
entation was first gained by sucli as were founders, 
benefactors, or maintainers of tlie chnrcli.^ Still tlie 
charter gave this right to the lord proprietor. In tliis 
state of affairs it was intolerable to think of increasing 
by one-third the incomes of worthless clergymen. Their 
incomes under the inspection act were thouglit to have 
been far too large to be squandered in idle living. 

In the midst of the strife, some lawyers thought they 
discovered that the law of 1702 was null and void. They 
said: "The Province of Maryland was in the hands of 
the Crown in tlie reigns of King William and Queen 
Anne. A General Assembly in tlie time of William had 
been legally chosen by the King's writs of election and 
summons. King AVilliam died on tlie eighth of March 
1701-02, AVithout any fresh writ of election and sum- 
mons the Assembly afterward met, and on the sixteenth 
of March 1701-02 made and enacted the contested law, 
commonly called the forty per poll law."^ ]\Iany people 
then refused to pay their minister anything. Lawsuits 
Avere the consequence ; and usually the decision was in 
favor of the taxpayer.^ But appeals were made ; and 
the case was not yet fully decided when, in the year 1773, 
the Assembly succeeded in passing an act for paying the 
clergy either thirty pounds of inspected tobacco or four 
shillings per jioU. This act, however, was to have no 
influence in determining the validity of the law of 1702. 

10. R., April 29, 1708. 

2 Maryland (I'a.vellf, Scpteinher 10, 1772. 

8 Ihicl, Marcli 4, 177:) ; Ilawk.s, p. 279. 



RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE CLERGY 459 

The time had at hist come when the people and the 
Assembly were determined either to correct the abuses 
of the clergy or else overthrow the church as established. 
In the year 1768 the vestry of Coventry Parish shut 
their newly inducted minister out of the church, tlireat- 
ened to tear down the house in which an}' one should 
allow him to preach, and began suit to determine whether 
they or the lord proprietor had the right to appoint their 
minister. In the year 1771 the disciplinary act was 
passed. Should the right of the vestry to appoint the 
minister have been denied, or should the disciplinary act 
have proved to be ineffectual, there would have been all 
the stronger probability that the church was not long to 
remain established by law. 

The lord proprietor resisted with all his might the 
extension of the laws of both church and state in the 
mother country to his province. He was unsuccessful in 
resisting the extension of those of the state, and this 
strengthened the political power of the people. He was 
more successful in resisting the extension of those of the 
church, because the people themselves were afraid of 
episcopal authority. But this very success made him 
responsible for the abuses of the clergy and thereby added 
strength to the growing opposition wliich the people gave 
him. Finally, the vices of the clergy not only left the 
church without a restraining influence over the legislative 
Assembly, but, by being conducive to the growth of scep- 
ticism and dissenting sects, they indirectly occasioned the 
development of a broader, more liberal, and more pro- 
gressive spirit among the people. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Relations with the Homk Government 

Until the close of the last intercolonial war, in the year 
1763, the lord proprietor was kept between two tires : that 
of the iiome government on the one side, and tliat of his 
tenants, the people, and their representatives on the other. 
But from then until the final overthrow of the proprietary 
government, the people of Maryland, in union with those 
of the other colonies, were engaged in the great struggle 
with the mother country. 

The lord proprietor, no less than the most lowly of his 
tenants, was a subject of the king ; and this fact weakened 
his power to inspire with awe or with the spirit of sub- 
mission. It was necessary for him to permit those under 
his government to enjoy their rights as British sul)jects if 
he would prevent them from carrying their grievances 
against him to the crown. At the same time it was neces- 
sary that he should .govern with a sufficiently strong hand 
to preserve order, prevent anarchy, or suppress rebellion, if 
he would not have the crown declare that he had forfeited 
his right to the government. If he would avoid the fatal 
rock, it was necessary that he should keep his government 
adjusted to the views of the part}^ in power in the mother 
country; that he should make changes so as to meet every 
important constitutional change in the motlier conntiy : 
tliat he sliduld at least be most cautious about opposing any 
policy of the home government, and, especially, that he 

460 



EELATI0N8 WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 4G1 

should show the highest regard to every mstruction or 
request from that government. 

The first lord proprietor was both politic and diplomatic. 
He had the support of the home authorities in his contest 
with the Jearuit priests. During the progress of the war 
between the king and Parliament he made changes in his 
government so as to make it agreeable to the victoi's, and at 
the same time preserve harmony between his Catholic and 
Protestant tenants. Again, when Claiborne and the Puri- 
tan commissioners had got possession of his government, 
he won the favor of Cromwell and thereby caused it to be 
restored. 

But the second lord proprietor did not inherit his father's 
diplomatic tact ; and then, too, in his administration, the 
home government, seeking to enrich England through her 
colonial trade, gave more and more attention to the govern- 
ment of the colonies. Upon complaint being made about 
the neglect of Protestantism, the home government in- 
structed the lord proprietor to have Protestant ministers 
appointed ; but he, relying solely on the words of the 
charter that were in his favor, acted as if England had no 
right to interfere. When the home government asked him 
what were the obstructions to, the trade of his province, and 
what improvements he would suggest, he replied, saying, 
" The greatest obstruction of the trade of this Province is 
what the late Acts of Parliament made in England for 
Navigation have occasioned, the removing of which is not 
to be expected until it be for the interest of England to 
remove them." ^ 

As England saw fit to treat her colonies as her posses- 
sions rather than as part of herself, the acts of trade were 
not repealed. On the contrary, they were extended and 
more and more rigidly enforced. Under those acts officers 
1 Proceedings of the Council, 1GG7 to 1G87-88, p. 268 et seq. 



402 MAllVLAND AS A I'ROI'K I KTAUV IMlOVINCE 

were ai)pointed by the crown to administer them and collect 
such duties as might be imposed. Some of his Majesty's 
collectors of customs were base and insolent men. Under 
these circumstances, the lord proprietor became too irritated 
to act discreetly. He quarrelled with Rousby, one of those 
collectors, and then sought his removal and the appoint- 
ment of two of his own relatives — who were collecting 
the duties imposed by the Maryland Assembly — to collect 
for the king. In several letters to the authorities at home, 
he denounced Rousby in the strongest terms at his com- 
mand. He called him an insolent, dissolute, and profane 
rogue, a knave, a devil, a traitor. He charged him with 
fraud and extortion. He declared that because of the trouble 
shipmasters had with him, Maryland was losing much of 
her trade. ^ Rousby, on his side, however, represented that 
the lord proprietor had greatly hindered him in the dis- 
charge of his duties ; ^ and instead of all the shipmasters 
being incensed against Rousby, Richard Colvill, one of 
them, reported in London that the officers of Maiyland had 
imposed an oath on the people whereby they were required 
to swear fidelity to the lord proprietor against all princes 
whatsoever, but particularly against the king of England. 

After the case had been brought before the commissioners 
of the customs, the treasury board, and the privy council, 
instead of removing Rousby, a judgment to the amount of 
X2r)00 was passed against the lord proprietor, and besides 
demanding of him this amount, lie was severely censured 
and commanded to take care in the future that all the 
laws of England relating to the colonial trade were duly 
observed, and that encouragement and assistance were 
given to tlie customs officers.^ To make matters still 

1 Proceedings of the Council, 1667 to 1687-88, pp. 274-276, 279. 

2 Ibid, pp. 288 rt spq., 292 et seq. 

8 Proceedings of tlie Council, 1667 to 1687-88, p. 3:33 et scq. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 463 

worse, only three years after the above judgment had been 
pronounced, Rousby was stabbed to the heart in a quarrel 
with George Talbot, a relative of the lord proprietor, and 
the chief of his council. 

Only a short time after the murder had been committed, 
Nehemiah Blackiston, another collector of his Majesty's 
customs, wrote a long letter to the commissioners of cus- 
toms, in which he first stated that Talbot's friends and 
adherents had procured his escape from prison in Virginia, 
and had got him safely into Maryland, where he was liv- 
ing in his own house with little fear of being brought to 
trial. Then he proceeded to tell how, in his own case, 
the members of the council were so far from assisting him 
in his Majesty's service that they had disowned his com- 
mission, torn and burned his certificates to shipmasters, 
appointed others to collect his Majesty's customs, and 
threatened him with banishment for refusing to submit to the 
will of their appointees. He declared he was confident that 
several thousand pounds sterling had been lost to his INIajesty 
through the obstructions which the lord proprietor's officers 
had put in the way of collecting the customs.^ 

The obstinacy of the lord proprietor and his officers 
could be justified on no other ground than that his charter 
had been infringed. King James II therefore instituted 
a quo icarranto proceeding to ainiul that document. This 
had not been accomplished when he was driven from the 
throne and succeeded by King William and Queen IVIary. 
The lord proprietor was ordered to have the new Protes- 
tant king and queen proclaimed in his province. He 
despatched a messenger to carry the order to his Catholic 
council ; but that messenger died on the way, and the 
order was not executed.^ Thereupon, the Protestant 

1 Proceedings of the Council, ]G('u to 1687-88, pp. 436-439. 

2 Ibid., 1687-88 to 1693, pp. 113, 114. 



464 MARYLAND AS A rROl'RIETAi: V PROVINCE 

people of his province rose up, took possession of the 
government, and asked the new monarchs to establish a 
royal government over them. This was done ; and the 
people and their representatives received a large accession 
of rights and powers. 

After twenty-three years of royal government, the lord 
proprietor was restored not to such an absolute govern- 
ment as had existed previous to the year 1G80, but to the 
more popular system which had been instituted and de- 
veloped by permission of the home government — in which 
Parliament, if not the House of Commons alone, by the 
English Revolution of 1688, had become the real sovereicrn. 
^Subsequent to 1715 appointment of a governor by the 
proprietor had to be approved by the home government. 
Furthermore, the crown instructed that governor in lono- 
detail with respect to the execution of the acts of trade, 
and he was put under bonds and oath to observe the same^ 

The relations between the people and the lord proprietor, 
subsequent to his restoration, affect the relations with the 
home government maiidy through their bearing on the 
attempts of the lower house to ap[)oint an agent to repre- 
sent the people's grievances to the crown. The first re- 
quest for the appointment of an agent came from the home 
government not long after the royal government had been 
established ; but the lower house was unwilling to bear the 
expense until there was some pressing need. In the year 
1695, while England was asking assistance for the defence 
of New York, some members of the lower house were of the 
opinion that if an agent were appointed to make known 
the danger that was threatening jNIaryland, she would not 
be asked to give to New York.^ Yet no agent was at that 
time appointed. But seven j^ears later the home govern- 
ment not only asked further aid for New York, but also 

1 L. II. J., May 1:3, lo, 17, Octobers, 10, 17, 18, 1G95. 



KELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 465 

more urgently than ever repeated its request for the 
establishment of an agency. It complained that on many 
occasions business touching Maryland could not be done 
without some charge, and that for want of an agent great 
and increasing inconveniences were arising through delay 
of reports and the like.^ It so happened that at this time 
Nathaniel Blackiston, who for two years had been popular 
as governor, was, on account of ill health, about to retire 
from that office and return to England. Before departing 
he offered to serve the province as its agent for one year 
without any cliarge, and for as long thereafter as tlie 
Assembly should see fit to employ him at X120 sterling 
per annum. As the lower house had just before reluc- 
tantly voted to give X300 more to New York, and at the 
same time expressed a desire that Maryland's own need of 
defence should be presented to the king, Blackiston's offer 
was readily accepted.^ 

But the members of the lower house were too much 
mistaken, too selfish, and too unjust to make it possible 
for an agent to give them satisfaction. Tliere had been 
good reason why Maryland should contribute toward the 
defence of New York ; for Indian affairs in that province 
were of prime importance, whereas in Maryland there was 
little danger from the Indians, provided they were dis- 
creetly managed in New York. The only other matters of 
much importance wiiich the newly appointed agent was 
asked to attend to were those relating to differences be- 
tween the proprietor and the people, and in these, also, 
the people were too much prejudiced against the proprie- 
tor to stop with asking simple justice. 

The consequence was that Blackiston did not accomplish 
enough in behalf of the province to keep the lower house 
willing to continue his salary. After a few years the 

1 L. H. J., March 25, 1702. 2 ma.^ March 24, 25, 1702. 

2h 



466 MARYLAND AS A I'ltOIMlII-yrARY I'HOVIN-CE 

province was again without an agent. The board of 
trade urged tliat the agency be made permanent. But 
nothing was done until the 3'ear 1713, when it appeared 
that there had been a failure to present the crown with an 
address from the Assembly concerning the claim of Law- 
rence to the license money from ordinaries ; and as another 
request that the claim be paid came from the crown that 
year, the lower house was ready to employ Blackiston 
again in order that he might show wh}' Lawrence was not 
entitled to the money in question.^ This time he seems 
to have been paid his salary for eight years. But as he 
won no important case for the province during those years, 
the lower house, in the year 1721, asked that he be dis- 
charered on the jjround that he had been of too little ser- 
vice for the expense, because the lord pi-oprietor was more 
easy of access than the crown, and because no other pro- 
prietary province employed an agent.^ It was of no use 
that the up[)er house zealousl}' urged the continuance of 
his salary principally on the gi-ound that the loi'd proprietor 
might need assistance in making representations to the 
court or to Parliament. The agency was discontinued. 

Thus far the agency was distinctl}' an organ of the royal 
government. The board of trade had desired that it 
should be made permanent in order to facilitate business. 
But the lower house had been unwilling to incur the expense 
except when the people had a particular giievance against 
the crown ; and the governor and the upper house, on 
behalf of the board of trade, accepted the best terms they 
could get from the lower house. The idea of representing 
grievances through an agent survived the restoration of the 
proprietary government ; but from that time the grievances 
were not against the crown, but against the lord proprietor, 

1 Supra, p. 3;-i5 ; U. II. J., October 29, 1713. 

2 L. H. J., August 4 and b, 1721. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 467 

and were to be represented to the crown in the nature of 
an appeal. Wherefore, as both the governor and the upper 
house were the representatives of the lord proprietor, who 
was himself in England to look after his own interests, 
the members of the lower house contended that they 
alone, as the only representatives of the people, should be 
permitted to appoint and instruct an agent to be main- 
tained by a tax on their constituents. The lord proprietor 
and hfs representatives refused to allow the appointment 
of such an agent, and the effect of the refusal was not 
unlike that which comes from denying the right of free 
speech. 

It was in the year 1725, while the upper house was pre- 
senting its petition to the lord proprietor against the act 
for the reduction of officers' fees and in the midst of the 
controversy over English statutes, that the lower house 
passed its first agency bill. The upper house rejected it 
as a most unreasonable measure. Nevertheless, until the 
year 1774, the lower house continued to pass it at every 
session in which there was much disagreement between the 
two houses, and on the most critical occasions this very 
question was presented to the crown either through an 
address from the lower house or through an agent sup- 
ported for a time by subscription. 

In the year 1739 the lower house was loud in its clamor 
that the twelvepence tobacco duty, and the fourteen-pence 
tonnage duty were being collected without law._i' Among 
other grievances then existing were the establishment of 
fees by proclamation, the vacating of grants alleged to 
contain surplus land, and the demand of alienation fines 
on lands devised. The governor was asked to redress 
these grievances. But as his reply gave no satisfaction, 
the upper house was presented with a bill for imposing a 

1 tSupra, pp. 91, 346. 



4<)8 MARYLAND AS A IMtOPUJETAlI V PROVINCE 

duty on tobacco to pay an agent who was to be appointed 
and instincted by a committee — designated as trustees — 
named by the lower house. 

Upon rejecting this l)ill, the members of the upper house 
showed the lieight of their resentment in a message con- 
taining the following : " Although a prettier scheme for 
power and profit in our little world of politics could hardly 
be thought of, yet far be it from us to imagine that any 
persons, either in or out of 3^our house, had any share 
in this admirable project with a view of being Trustees. 
Sliould this ingenious contrivance take effect, the Trustees 
might play the game into each other's hands and represent 
each other in iMigland. The authority which they would 
gain by their Minister's comphiints in England against 
whatever person or thing they pleased, might ver}' soon be- 
come terrible and dangerous to every person the}- should be 
pleased to think and stigmatize as delinquents and malig- 
nants in this Province. And when, after glutting their 
vanity with a dictatorial power and lilling their pockets 
with money under pretence of necessaiy uses and purposes, 
they should perceive an ap[)roaching period to their great- 
ness of authority and gain, they might, by their Minister's 
consent, employ their power and money intrusted witli 
them to their own private advantage, and the very great 
prejudice of the Province." ^ 

But some of the members of the lower house were 
made of the sterner stuff, and these reflections upon them 
only called out their power to speak to the point and to 
act with effect. They replied, saying: "The people of 
Maryland think the Proprietary takes money from them 
unlawfully. The Proprietary says he has a right to that 
money. This matter must be determined by his Majesty, 
who is indifferent to both. The Proprietary is at home 

lU. H. J., June 5, 1739. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 469 

and has this same money to negotiate the affairs on his 
j)art. The people have no way of negotiating it on their 
part but by employing fit persons in London to act for 
them ; those persons must be paid for their trouble; and 
this bill proposes to raise a fund for that purpose. The 
Upper House tells us you shall not have that bill unless 
you let the Governor and us, or rather the Proprietary 
with whom we contest, have as well the nomination of the 
persons to be made use of on this occasion as to determine 
what, if anything, shall be paid them for their services. . . . 
The possibility you mention of the Trustees betraying the 
trust reposed in them will have little weight with the 
world, since the like supposition may, with equal propriety, 
be a]3plied to all trusts of that kind ; unless you would 
have us believe your Honors to be the only infallible per- 
sons in the world, and so commit this guardianship you 
speak of to yourselves. But how convenient that might 
be for the people whoever reads your message may easily 
judge. We cannot help thinking that the denying this 
looks too much like an unwillingness to have the matter 
in dispute brought to light. However, we shall give you 
no further trouble in it than to tell you the people of 
Maryland have spirit enough, and we hope will find means 
without this bill, to do themselves justice."^ 

During the same session, the lower house chose a com- 
mittee of nine to appoint and instruct an agent and to 
furnish him with all necessary information. ^ It petitioned 
the lord proprietor for the redress which the governor had 
declined to give. It also prepared an address to the king 
in which it complained of the grievances, oppressions, and 
extortions from which the people of Maryland were suffer- 
ing under the proprietary government. " Our rights as 
British subjects," that body said in this address, "are in- 

1 L. H. J., June G, 1739. 2 l. II. J., June 0, 1739. 



470 MARYLAND AS A IMIol'KIKTA i; V IMtoVINCE 

vaded by having taxes laid upon us williont any law, and 
ordinances made by our Proprietary or bis Governor, with 
the advice of a Council of his own choosinjx who share in the 
spoils of the People by holding the principal offices of the 
Government, imposed on us as laws. ... To complete our 
misfortune, after our repeated and fruitless solicitations to 
iiis Lordship's Governor for relief, we endeavored to make 
a law f(u- taxing ourselves in order to raise a fund whereby 
to enable us to lay our grievances at your Majesty's feet 
and implore your royal protection ; 3'-et we cannot obtain 
to that law the assent of his Lordship's Council, who, as 
we conceive without legal authority, have assumed a share 
in our Legislature and a separate negative on all laws pro- 
posed by the delegates in Assembly and holding their 
places in Council, as well as their offices in Government, at 
his Lordship's will and pleasure, are absolutely under his 
direction and serve only to screen him or his Governor 
from the imputation of anything that is transacted hurtful 
or op[)ressive to the People. . . . May it there foi-c please 
your Majesty to take our condition into your consideration 
and give instructions to the Proprietary, his Governor and 
Council here, that a law may be assented to for raising 
money on ourselves whereby the House of Delegates for 
the time being may be enabled to employ fit agents and 
council to la}^ our case in a pro^x-r manner before yinir 
iSacred Majesty." ^ 

Ferdinand John Paris was appointed agent, and for at 
least five years was paid with money raised by subscription. 
He was directed to present the petition to the lord pro- 
prietor, give his Lordship three months to consider it, and, 
if the answer of the proprietor was wholly unsatisfactory, 
then to lay the address before the king. 

But the governor and council caused delay in the 

iL. II. J., June 11, 1739. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 471 

agent's proceedings by refusing the agency committee 
access to the records, on the ground that no persons coukl 
act as a committee of the lower liouse except during a 
session of the Assembly. This incensed the lower house 
still more. Furthei'more, by the time the petition had been 
presented to the lord proprietor, the Assembly had passed 
a supply bill for the purpose of aiding the mother country 
in an expedition to the West Indies. As this naturally 
called for an address to the crown, the lower house pre- 
pared one and inserted in it the following clause: "Al- 
though our situation be remote, and we live under a 
proprietary government, yet we hope we are not beyond 
tlie extensive influence of your Majesty's just and mild 
administration, and think it our greatest happiness that 
we can have recourse to your Royal. Person for protection 
whenever we may be put to the necessity of imploring 
it."^ The agent not only saw that this address was 
properly presented, but he caused it to be printed in the 
London Gazette. And when there was talk in London 
about the small number of men which Maryland had sent 
on the expedition, he told how the lower house had made 
ample provision for sending five hundred, though only 
two hundred had gone. 

The situation became thoroughly alarming to the lord 
proprietor. In a most conciliatory answer to the petition 
from the lower house, he expressed the utmost willingness 
to redress the people's grievances.^ He recalled the gov- 
ernor toward whom the lower house had become offended 
and put in his place a native of the ])rovince. He ceased 
to demand that grants containing surplus land be vacated. 
He gave up his claim to alienation fines on lands devised. He 
gave up the attempt to obtain money from ferry licenses. He 

1 L. H. J., .luly 29, 1740 ; see also the Dulany Papers. 

2 L. H. J., May 2, 1744. 



472 MARYLAND AS A IMJOrillKTA H V I'KOVrNCE 

privately expressed a readiness to relinquish his claim to 
the right of creating new offices. He made a generous 
offer with respect to an equivalent for his quit-rents. 
Furthermore, it was during this period of threat to appeal 
to the crown that the lower house won its series of vic- 
tories in the contests with the upper house over parliamen- 
tary procedure and the fund for arms and ammunition.^ 
And the period closed with the passage of the bill for the 
inspection of tobacco and the regulation of officers' fees. 

The tobacco duty and the port duty continued to be 
collected; and tlu' lord pro[)rietor directed the governor 
to take every possible measure necessary to prevent the 
establishment of an agency, on the ground that it would 
cause a sea of trouble as Avell as unnecessary expense. 
But it is probable that the lower house, through fear of 
defeat, had no desire to have the crown decide the ques- 
tion relating to those duties ;^ at the same time, with every 
future rejection of the agency bill, the chief demagogues 
in that house persuaded the more ignorant people that the 
rejection was due to the lord proprietor's consciousness 
that the imposition and collection of the two duties in 
question were illegal. 

In this way a state of unrest was prolonged until the 
fourth intercolonial war, wlien the agency question again 
came to the fiont. The attempt to secure acceptable sup- 
ply bills from the lower house, by laying before it words of 
censure from tlie home government, served onl}- to draw 
from that body the charge that the Assembly's transactions 
had not been represented in a true light.'' In the year 1701 
the lower house expressed to the king its concern for the 
small amount of service which Maryland had given in the 
war, but asked him not to entertain on that account any 
unfavorable opinion of the people of the province until a 
1 Supra, pp. 2!)2-303. 2 /^,y.^ pp. 91^ 347. 3 /;„v/.^ p. 338. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 473 

full inquiry had been made into the cause of their not 
giving more, and until they should be permitted to have 
an agent who might lay before him all the grievances 
suffered under the proprietary government.^ One year 
later, also, when Governor Sharpe endeavored to convince 
the lower house that the transmission of the Assembly 
journals to his Majesty's ministers made an agent unneces- 
sary, he received in reply the following: "Since it seems 
to be your Excellency's opinion that we have no occasion 
for an agent in the particular instance mentioned in your 
message for reasons which may be extended to every 
other cause of complaint, we think it amounts to little less 
than a general denial of the expediency of establishing a 
person in that character. This we conceive a doctrine of 
so dangerous a tendency to the rights of our constituents 
that we must insist a little on your Excellency's patience 
while we explain and enforce the right of the people to 
appoint an agent and the expediency of enforcing that 
right. The great end of employing an agent is to represent 
and bring to a final determination any matter in dispute 
with the Proprietary by which the people may apprehend 
themselves aggrieved. For, if the people think themselves 
aggrieved, they have a right to apply to his Majesty for 
redress. If they have this right, it follows that they must 
have a right of the means of giving his Majesty the fullest 
information upon the subject of their appeals. And this 
no doubt his Majesty from his known love of justice and 
tenderness to all his subjects would require. So we con- 
ceive it is not only an invasion of the people's privileges, 
but derogatory from his Majesty's dignity to withhold 
from him the clearest lights we can give him for the infor- 
mation of his judgment. We hope, therefore, we shall be 
excused if we say it is too assuming in a governor to 

1 L. II. J., April 22, 1761. 



474 MAi;VI>ANI) AS A PIIOPIMKTARV PROVINCE 

undertake to judge of the expediency of a people's having 
an agent to .supi)oit their inteiests when he may be con- 
sidered the delegate of the Lord Propiietary, against whom 
they may be desirous to exhibit their complaints, and the 
subordinate instrument of those very encroachments by 
which they are aggrieved." 

Tlie governor and the upper house, however, stood firm. 
The restoration of peace put an end to the dispute over 
the supply bills. The lord proprietor gave up his claim to 
the license money from ordinaries. So the need of an agent 
after the war was no greater than before it, except to have 
the crown decide the case about paying the clerk of the 
council.^ As if for this purpose, the lower house employed 
Charles Garth as its agent.^ lie was paid for a time with 
money raised by subscription and by a lottery. Instead, 
however, of being directed to attend at once to the clerk's 
case, he was asked first to seek an order from the crown 
whereby the people of Maryland should be permitted to 
tax themselves for the maintenance of a permanent 
agency. And very soon — before the desired order had 
been obtained — the people's grievances against Parlia- 
ment and the crown itself became far greater than those 
against their all but vanquished lord proprietor. The 
agency question was accordingly lost sight of in the up- 
rising of the people against the power to which they had 
hitherto seemed so anxious to appeal for protection. 

Ceaseless opposition to the lord pioprietor and industrial 
dependence on the mother country had caused the people 
of Maryland, previous to the fourth intercolonial war, to 
look upon the home government as their benefactor and 
protector, and to quite overlook the encroachments on their 

1 Supra, pp. 372, 37.3. 

2 L. II. J.. December 0, 17GG ; Sharpens Correspondence, Vol. Ill, pp. 
348, 3oG, 384. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 475 

independence that were made under the guise of the acts 
of trade. In the year 1718 tlie attorney for his Majesty's 
surveyor general of the customs caused some disturbance 
by prosecuting suits in the superior courts for the recovery 
of tiifling sums.^ Upon hearing, in the year 1731, that 
Parliament was about to pass an act placing restrictions on 
manufactures within the colonies, the lower house showed 
some uneasiness. And on several occasions that house 
asked that Maryland, in the interest of her fishing indus- 
try, be given the liberty of importing salt from all parts of 
Europe.^ But with these three exceptions, it does not 
appear that, previous to the fourth intercolonial war, 
there was any friction between a proprietary Assembly of 
Maryland and the home government. 

By that time, however, Maryland was prepared to pur- 
sue a different course toward the mother country. With 
the development of her large resources in the West, she 
was rapidly becoming industrially independent. Her 
social force was increasing in a geometrical ratio. With 
the many triumphs of the lower house over the other 
branches of the legislature, the people had become con- 
scious, in a high degree, of their political power, and, con- 
sequently, were strongly attached to their constitution. 
The lower house was determined to guard at any cost the 
rights which had already been acquired ; and it was far 
more eager to further increase those rights, by winning 
new victories over the lord proprietor, than it was to 
assist the mother country to defeat the French or the 
other colonies to acquire new territory. If the home 
government had given assistance against the lord proprie- 
tor, the Mar3dand Assembly might have made liberal 
appropriations for carrying on the war. But, instead, the 

1 L. H. J., May 5, 9, 1718, April 9, 1720. 

2 Ibid., July 17, 1732 ; U. H. J., May 4, 1736. 



476 MARYLAND AS A PUOPRIETAKV I'UOVINCE 

home government endeavored to bring al)Out a union of 
the colonies, whereby its power over them miglit be in- 
creased, — even to taxing them, it was feared, — and in 
the dispute over supply bills it took the part of tlie 
lord proprietor rather than that of the lower house. 
Maryland, as a consequence, showed her readiness to 
oppose the plan of union, and gave but little assist- 
ance toward carrying on the war. Out of these con- 
ditions arose the struggle between her and the mother 
country. 

After the Maryland commissioners had returned from 
the Congress at Albany and had laid before the lower 
house the plan of union which had been considei'ed there, 
the members of that house unanimously disapproved of the 
said plan on the ground that it " manifestly tended to the 
destruction of the Rights and Privileges" of the people 
of Maryland, A few da3^s later they expressed their 
disappioval to the governor in the following words, "We 
do not conceive that the commissioners were intended or 
empowered to agree upon any plan of a proposed union 
of the several colonies to be laid before the parliament 
of Great Britain with humble ap[)lication for an act by 
virtue of which one general government may be formed in 
America, and therefore do not think ourselves obliged 
to take any particular notice of their minutes of proceed- 
ings relative thereto; but as it has been laid open to our 
view we cannot, consistent with our duty to our constitu- 
ents, forbear to observe in general that the carrying the 
said plan into execution would absolutely subvert that 
happy form of government which we have a right to by 
our charter (the freedom of which was doubtless one great 
inducement to our ancestors to leave their friends and 
native country and venture their lives and fortunes among 
a fierce and savage people in a rough, uncultivated world) 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 477 

and destroy the Rights, Liberties, and Properties of his 
Majesty's loyal subjects of this Province." ^ 

During the progress of the war, not only did Maryland 
fail to comply with most of the requisitions made upon 
her by the home government, but the lower house struck 
directly at the royal prerogative by inserting in its supply 
bills a clause to forbid Maryland troops from serving out- 
side of the province.^ This course so incensed the prime 
minister, Mr. Pitt, that he avowed his intention of bring- 
ing the colonies into such subjection, when peace should 
be restored, as would enable the home government to com- 
pel obedience to its requisitions ; and although Mr. Pitt 
afterward became the champion of American liberties, the 
conduct of Maryland during that war was a source of 
much strength to the members of Parliament who worked 
for the passage of the famous Stamp Act. 

While Parliament was considering this scheme for tax- 
ing the colonies, Governor Sharpe avoided meeting the 
Assembly, somewhat to the discomfiture of the liberal 
leaders; and even after the news had been received, in 
April, 1765, tliat the act was quite sure to pass, the prev- 
alence of small-pox, which had broken out in the pre- 
ceding month, caused the meeting to be delayed several 
months longer. 

In the meantime, however, articles had appeared in the 
Virginia, New York, Boston, and Connecticut Gazettes 
warmly denouncing the act; and in August, upon the 
arrival of Hood, the stamp distributer for Maryland, his 
effigy was whipped, stood in the pillory, hanged, and burned 
at several places within the province.^ On the night of 
the second of September, a mob, numbering from three to 

1 L. H. J., March 10, 1755. 

2 Supra, pp. .".SI, P..S2. 

8 Maryland Gazette, August 29 and September 5, 1705. 



478 MARYLAND AS A I'U( )I'i:i KTA K V I'llUVINCE 

four huiidiecl, pulled down tlie house wliieli he was pre- 
paring for the reception of a cargo of goods ; and as the 
governor had no military force with which to prevent such 
proceedings, Hood's relatives, fearing for his safety, advised 
him to depart out of the province. He readily took the 
advice, and did not return to discharge the duties of the 
office which he had solicited.^ 

Having got rid of Hood and the sniall-pox, several of 
tlie leading lawyers and other prominent men signed a 
petition to the governor for convening the Assembly. This 
was strongly desired, in order that the lower house might 
choose delegates to the congress at New York, which was 
to frame a petition to the home government for the repeal 
of the Stamp Act. As the governor and council feared 
that a refusal to proceed at once to convene the Assembly 
would cause great disorder, and probably end in a meeting 
of the delegates at the call of their constituents, the prayer 
of the lawyers' petition was granted.^ 

The Assembly met September 23, 1765. From the first 
day of its meeting, the lower house gave its undivided 
attention to the Stamp Act. After due consideration of 
letters from Massachusetts, William Murdock, Edward 
Tilghman, and Thomas Ringgold were chosen delegates 
to the congress at New York, and among their instructions 
was the following: "You are there to join in a general 
and united, dutiful, loyal, and humble representation to 
his Majesty and the British Parliament, of the circum- 
stances and condition of the British colonies ; and to pray 
relief from the burdens and restraints lately laid upon 
their trade and commerce, and especially from the taxes 
imposed by the Stamp Act, whereby they are deprived, in 
some instances, of that invaluable privilege of Englishmen 

1 Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. Ill, pp. 220, 221, 223. 

2 //-!(/., pp. 230, 231. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 479 

and British subjects, trials by juries; and to take care that 
such representation shall humbly and decently, but ex- 
pressly, contain an assertion of the rights of the colonies 
to be exempt from all and every taxations and impositions 
upon their persons and property to which they do not con- 
sent in a legislative way, either by themselves or their 
representatives freely chosen and appointed." ^ 

A few days later the same house, upon considering the 
grievances that would arise from an execution of the 
Stamp Act, passed the following resolutions as declarative 
of the constitutional rights and privileges of the freemen 
of Maryland : — 

I. Resolved, unanimoiisly. That the first adventurers 
and settlers of this province of Maryland brought with 
them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other 
his Majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this province, 
all the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities, 
that at any time have been held, enjoyed, and possessed, 
by the people of Great Britain. 

II. Resolved, u7ianimously, That it was granted hj 
Magna Carta, and other the good laws and statutes of 
England, and confirmed by the Petition and Bill of 
Rights, that the subject should not be compelled to 
contribute to any tax, talliage, aid, or other like charges 
not set by common consent of Parliament. 

III. Resolved, unanimously. That by a royal charter, 
granted by his Majesty, King Charles I in the eighth 
year of his reign and in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand six hundred and thirty-two, to Cecilius, then Lord 
Baltimore, it was, for the encouragement of the people 
to transport themselves and families into this province, 
among other things, covenanted and granted by his said 
Majesty for himself, his heirs, and successors, as followetli : 

1 L. H. J., September 24, 1765. 



480 MARYLAND AS A PROPKIETARV PROVINCE 

. . . "And further, our pleasure is, and by these presents 
for us, our heirs and successors, we do covenant and grant, 
to and with the said now Lord Baltimore, his heirs and 
assigns, that we, our heirs and successors, shall, at no time 
hereafter, set or make, or cause to be set, any imposition, 
custom or other taxation, rate or contribution whatsoever, 
in or upon the dwellers and inhabitants of the aforesaid 
province, for their lands, tenements, goods or chattels, 
within the said province, or in or upon an}' goods oi" mer- 
chandises within the said province, or to be laden and 
unladen within any of the ports or harbors of the said 
province: And our pleasure is, and for us, our heirs and 
successors, we charge and command, that this our decla- 
ration shall be henceforward, fiom time to time, received 
and allowed in all our courts, and befoie all the judges 
of us, our heirs and successors, for a sufficient and lawful 
discharge, payment, and acquittance : commanding all and 
singular our officers and ministers of us, our heirs and 
successors, and enjoining them upon pain of oiu- high dis- 
pleasure, that they do not presume, at any time, to attempt 
anything to tlie contrary of the premises, or that they do 
in any sort withstand the same ; but that they be at all 
times aiding and assisting, as is fitting, unto the said now 
Lord Baltimore, and his heirs, and to the inhabitants and 
merchants of ^SLuyland aforesaid, their servants, ministeis, 
factors, and assigns, in the full use and fruition of the 
benefit of this our charter." 

IV. Reiiolved^ That it is the unanimous opinion of this 
house that the said charter is declaratory of the constitu- 
tional rights and privileges of the freemen of this province. 

V. Resolved., unanimously., That trials by juries are the 
grand bulwark of liberty, the undoubted birtliright of 
every Englishman, and consequently of ever}' Britisli sub- 
ject in America : and that the erecting other jurisdictions 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 481 

for the trial of matters of fact is unconstitutional, and 
renders the subject insecure in his liberty and property. 

VI. Mesolved, That it is the unanimous opinion of this 
house that it cannot, with any truth or propiiety, be said 
that the freemen of this province of Maryland are repie- 
sented in the British Parliament. 

VII. .Resolved^ unanimously, That his Majesty's liege 
people of this ancient province have always enjoyed the 
right of being governed by laws, to which they themselves 
have consented, in the articles of taxes and internal polity ; 
and that the same hath never been forfeited, or any way 
yielded up, but hath been constantly recognized by the 
king and people of Great Britain. 

VIII. Resolved^ That it is the unanimous opinion of this 
house that the representatives of the freemen of this prov- 
ince, in their legislative capacity, together with the other 
parts of tlie legislature, have the sole right to lay taxes 
and impositions on the inhabitants of this province, or 
their property and effects, and that the laying, imposing, 
levying, or collecting any tax on or from the inhabitants 
of Maryland, under color of any other authority, is uncon- 
stitutional, and a direct violation of the rights of the 
freemen of this province." ^ 

Charles Garth was appointed to represent Maryland 
before the home government, and the concluding words of 
his instructions sent from the lower house, in December, 
were : " Is it generous or just that odious distinctions 
should be made between subjects of the same state? 
Americans as men are entitled to justice, as subjects to 
protection, and as British subjects to trials by juries. 
They have their rights and are grieved at their infraction. 
Whilst America languislied under an almost insup[)ortable 
load of debt to her Mother Country, her trade, her fiist 

1 L. H. J., September 28, 1765. 
2i 



482 MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETAKV IMIOVINCE 

hope, equally advantageous to both, ciampLMl ami almost 
ruined by the act mentioned before [the act restricting the 
colonial exportation of iron and lumber], and the number 
and severity of hovering Guarda Costas, came the tremen- 
dous Stamp Act armed with all its excessive penalties, big 
with the entire ruin of more than two million of subjects. 
Our trade is now at an end. Our specie is drained by 
remittances. Projects and enterprises have ceased amongst 
us. Our vessels, our lands, are to be sold, but there are 
no purchasers. We want the British manufactures, but 
cannot pay for them. What would Great Britain have? 
She had everything by her trade the Colonists could 
command. She cannot have it by her trade and taxes 
botli. By her trade she always had the balance gained 
by the Colonies from foreigners; by her taxes she 
throws the trade of the Colonies into the hands of For- 



eigners 



" 1 



Finally, a few days after these instructions had been 
drawn up, the governor was presented with the following 
remonstrance : " The unhappy prevalence of small-pox 
from the month of March to that of September last ren- 
dered a convention of the Assembly within that time 
impracticable ; but we are ignorant of any reasons that 
could occasion the long intervention from November, 1763, 
to last March, within which time circumstances of a 
peculiar nature required a meeting of the Assembly, which 
was prevented by prorogation. It is incumbent on us, as 
the representatives of a free people, to remonstrate against 
that measure ; especially as it prevailed at a time so very 
critical to the rights of America ; at a time when the good 
people of this province ardently wished for an opportunity 
to express, by their representatives in assembly, the sense 
of a scheme then entertained b}^ the British House of 

1 L. II. J., December 6, 1765. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 483 

Commons, of imposing stamp duties on tlie colonies ; and 
for want of which their involuntary silence on a subject 
so interesting and important has been construed by a late 
political writer of Great Britain as an acquiescence in that 
intended project." ^ 

Before any of the stamped paper was near, there was a 
disturbance which made it seem probable that if any of 
it were brought within reach of the people, they would be 
no less violent than they had been toward him who was 
to have distributed it. Early in September, the arrival 
at Annapolis of an English vessel led a number of people 
to inquire if any of the paper was on board. When the 
commander had refused to give a direct answer, one of 
those who had made the inquiry fastened to his hat a 
paper on which appeared the words, "No Stamp Act," and, 
wearinof this head-cjear, went to the tavern and entered 
the room in which the commander was sitting. The com- 
mander, regarding this as an intended affront, put the man 
out and ordered four of the crew to keep him out. This 
led to a dispute between one of the passengers and John 
Hammond, one of the liberals in the Assembly. The 
dispute turned into a fight, and Hammond was worsted. 
But during the fight, the cry went through the town that 
the commander was murdering Hammond ; and this 
brought a crowd which wounded the commander quite 
severely and forced Hammond's antagonist to swim aboard 
in order to save his life.^ 

This affair, the treatment of Hood, and the refusal of 
the lower house to give its consent to the landing of some 
of the paper that was later brought within the harbor of 
Annapolis, caused the governor and council to fear that, 
if landed, its burning could not be prevented; and, as a 

1 L. H. J., December 13, 1765. 

2 Sharpe's Correspojjdence, Vol, III, p. 226. 



484 MARYLAND AS A PROPHIETARY PROVINCE 

consequence, none of the stamped paper ever cast a shadow 
on Maryland soil.^ 

At the same time so great was the regard for hiw tliat 
in nearly all the counties the courts were permitted for 
several months to defer doing business that by the act of 
Parliament required the use of stamped paper. The Fred- 
erick County court, however, did not hesitate from the first. 
It sat in November, 1765, just after the act was to have 
gone into effect, and proceeded with all its regular busi- 
ness after it had expressed itself as follows: "It is 
the unanimous resolution and opinion of this court that 
all the business thereof shall and ought to be trans- 
acted in the usual and accustomed manner without any 
inconvenience or delay to be occasioned from the want 
of stamped paper, parchment, or vellum, and that all pio- 
ceedings shall be valid and effectual without the use of 
stamps, and they enjoin and order all sheriffs, clerks, 
counsellors, attorneys, and aW officers of the court to pro- 
ceed in their several avocations as usual, which resolution 
and opinion are grounded on the following and other 
reasons : — 

" First. It is conceived there hath not been a legal 
publication yet made of any act of Parliament imposing a 
stamp duty on the Colonies. Therefore this court are of 
the opinion that until the existence of such an act is 
properly notified it would be culpable in them to permit 
or suffer a total staofnation of business which must inevi- 
tably be productive of innumerable injuries and have a 
tendency to subvert all principles of civil government. 

"Second. As no stamps are yet arrived in this Province, 
and the inhabitants have no means of procuring any, this 
court are of opinion tliat it wouhl l)e an instance of the 

^ L. H. J., September 20 and November (?, 17'>5; Sharpe's Correspond- 
ence, Vol, III, p. 232. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 485 

most wanton oppression to deprive any person of a legal 
remedy for the recovery of bis property for omitting that 
which it is impossible to perform." 

The publication of the Maryland Gazette^ which, out of 
respect for law, the editor had discontinued in October, 
1765, was resumed on January 30, 1766, with a confession 
that its discontinuance had been due to an error in judg- 
ment. 

On the twenty-fourth day of the following month several 
prominent men of Baltimore County organized themselves 
as Sons of Liberty, resolved to oblige the several provin- 
cial officers to open their respective offices and proceed 
to business, and invited the gentlemen of the neighboring 
counties to organize themselves likewise and meet them at 
Annapolis to join in the undertaking. Accordingly, only 
two days later, Baltimore, Anne Arundel, and Kent coun- 
ties were represented in a meeting at Annapolis ; and after 
hearing different proposals and debating thereon with 
decency, coolness, and order, it was resolved to make a 
written application to the chief justice of the provincial 
court, the secretary, the commissary general, and the judges 
of the land office to open their respective offices and 
proceed as usual to the execution of their duties on the 
thirty-first day of March, or sooner, if a majority of the 
supreme courts in the northern colonies should proceed to 
business before that time. Before adjourning, it was fur- 
ther resolved to invite the Sons of Liberty in every county 
to have at least twelve of their number present at An- 
napolis on the last day of March to see the event of the 
application already made.^ The second meeting was held 
on the day appointed. The provincial court at first refused 
what was asked even upon the second application ; but 
when the Sons of Liberty persistently demanded immediate 

1 Maryland Gazette, March 0, 17GG. 



486 MARYLAND AS A IMlOl'KIETAltV I'lIOVINCE 

compliance, the court yielded. The secretary, the com- 
inissary genei'al, and the judges of the land office likewise 
did as the Sons of Liberty requested.^ Before the news of 
tlie repeal of the offensive act had come, in April, six of 
the county courts had, in the March session, done business 
as formerly, and there was little doubt but that the other 
eight would follow their example in the coming June. 

In Maryland, as in the northern colonies, the act was, 
therefore, as good as nullified before it was known that it 
had been repealed. Nevertheless, the news of the repeal 
was an occasion of great rejoicing — an occasion, also, of 
exalting the already recognized talents of Daniel Dulany, 
the secretary of the province, whose words probably had 
greater weight with Parliament in passing the act of repeal 
than did those of any other American. In his celebrated 
essay against the act Dulany pointed out, in a clear, simple, 
and foi'cible manner, that the colonists not only were not 
represented in Parliament, but could not be effectually 
represented in that body ; that taxation without represen- 
tation was a violation of the common law of England; that 
each of the colonial charters was designed to make the 
colonists more secure in their rights as British subjects by 
declaring and confirming their right to the protection of 
that common law, and that in no previous exercise of par- 
liamentary power over the colonies was revenue the single 
or even tlie direct pur[)ose. With far-reaching sagacity, 
he maintained that the colonists by manufacturing for 
themselves would remove the danger of being oppressed, 
and teach the mother country to regard her colonies as a 
part of herself and not mei-ely as her possessions. On this 
point a few of his own words were : " Let the manufacture 
of America be the symbol of dignity, the badge of virtue, 
and it will soon break the fetters of distress. A garment 

1 Munjhind Gazette, April .'>, 1766. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 487 

of linsey-woolsey, when made the distinction of real patri- 
otism, is more honorable and attractive of respect and 
veneration than all the pageantry, and the robes, and the 
pinnies, and the diadem of an emperor without it. Let the 
emulation be not in richness and variety of foreign pro- 
duction ; but in the improvement and perfection of our 
own. Let it be demonstrated that the subjects of the 
British empire in Europe and America are the same, that 
the hardships of the latter will ever recoil upon the former. 
In theory it is supposed that each is equally important to 
the other, that all partake of the adversity and depression 
of any. The theory is just, and time will certainly estab- 
lish it ; but if another principle should be ever hereafter 
adopted in practice and a violation deliberate, cruel, un- 
grateful, and attended with every circumstance of provo- 
cation be offered to our fundamental rights, why should 
we leave it to the slow advance of time ... to prove 
what might be demonstrated immediately? Instead of 
moping, and puling, and whining to excite compassion ; 
in such a situation we ought with spirit, and vigor, and 
alacrity, to bid defiance to tyranny by exposing its 
impotence, by making it as contemptible as it would be 
detestable. By a vigorous application to manufactures, 
the consequence of oppression in the colonies to the 
inhabitants of Great Britain would strike home immedi- 
ately. None would mistake it. Craft and subtilty would 
not be able to impose upon the most ignorant and credulous ; 
for if any should be so weak of sight as not to see, they 
would not be so callous as not to feel it. Such con- 
duct would be the most dutiful to the mother country. 
It would point out the distemper when the remedy was 
easy." It was acknowledged in the northern colonies that 
this essay " poured in light where all was darkness." \ 

1 Dulany Papers. 



488 MARYLAND AS A I'ltOI'l! I ETAH V PROVINCE 

From it, the gi-eat Pitt, in speaking for repeal, derived 
power. Amid the rejoicing that foUowed the news of the 
I'epeal, Duhiny's health was drunk many times both within 
and beyond the borders of Maryland.^ 

And yet there were English politicians who were too 
narrow, too vain, or too short-sighted to learn what Didany 
had endeavored to teach them. They still contended that 
it was expedient to tax the colonies. The rash Townshend, 
boasting "that he knew how to draw a revenue from the 
colonies without giving them offence," prevailed upon Par- 
liament, in the year 1767, to impose duties on tea, glass, 
pa[)er, and painters' colors, and to authorize the customs 
oi'iicers to make use of general writs of assistance whereby 
they would be einjxiwei-ed at their pleasure to make a forci- 
ble entry into any private house for the purpose of search- 
ing for smuggled goods. 

Upon hearing that such duties weie to be collected in 
such a manner, the Assembly of Massachusetts sent a cir- 
cular letter to the other assemblies, urging that harmonious 
petitions against such acts of parliament be made to the 
home government. Hillsborough, secretary of state, re- 
quested Governor Sharpe to do his utmost to prevail upon 
the Assembly of ^laryland to treat the Massachusetts letter 
" with the contem[)t it deserved." Sharpe, accordingly, 
asked tliat no notice be taken of the said letter. ^ But the 
lower house, in its reply given June -1, 17(38, interi)reted 
this as an interference with the liglu of petition, declared 
it should not be prevented by intimidation fiom doing 
what was right, and then concluded as follows: " What we 
shall do upon this occasion, or whether, in consequence 
of that letter, we shall do anything, it is not our present 
business to communicate to your Excellency ; but of tliis, 
be pleased to be assured, that we cannot be prevailed on to 

1 Maryland Gazette. 2 c. R., June 20, 1708. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 489 

take no notice of, or to treat with the least degree of con 
tempt, a letter so expressive of duty and loyalty to the 
Sovereign, and so replete with just principles of liberty ; 
and your Excellency may depend that whenever we appre- 
hend the rights of the people to be affected, we shall not 
fail boldly to assert, and steadily endeavor to maintain and 
support them, always remembering what we could wish 
never to be forgot, that by the Bill of Rights it is declared, 
' That it is the right of the subject to petition the king, 
and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning 
are illegal.' " 

On the same day, the same house drew up the following 
petition to the king : — 

" Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the 
representatives of 3'our Province of Maryland, ha[)py in 
their allegiance to the best of Kings, and warm in affection 
and attachment to your sacred person and government, 
with all humility beg leave to approach the throne and 
supplicate your Majesty, ever graciously inclined to hear 
the just complaints of your most remote subjects. 

" Your Majesty's people of this province conceive it a 
fixed and unalterable principle in the nature of things, and 
a part of every idea of property, that whatever a man hath 
honestly acquired cannot be taken from him without his 
consent : This immutable principle they humbly apprehend 
is happily ingrafted as a fundamental into the English con- 
stitution as is fully declared by Magna Carta and by the 
Petition and Bill of Rights. Hence it is that your Majesty's 
most distant subjects are jnstly entitled to all the rights, 
liberties, privileges, and imnuinities of your subjects born 
within the Kingdom of England. [Here the exemption 
clause in the Maryland charter is quoted.] 

" It is therefore with the deepest sorrow, may it please 
your most excellent Majesty, that we now approach the 



490 MARYLAND AS A IMtol'KIETAllV IMtOVIXCE 

throne on behalf of your faitlifiil snhjects of tliis province 
with all huniilit}- to re[)re.sent to your Majesty that by the 
several Statutes lately enacted in the Parliament of Great 
Britain by which sundry rates and duties are to be raised 
and collected within your Majesty's Colonies in America 
for the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue, this 
great fundamental principle of tlie Constitution is, in our 
opinion, infringed. The people of this Province, Royal 
Sir, are not in any manner nor can they ever possibly be 
effectually represented in the British Parliament; while 
therefore your jMajesty's Commons of Great Britain con- 
tinue to give and grant the pro])erty of the people in 
America, your faithful sul)jects in this and every other 
colony must be deprived of that most invaluable privilege, 
the power of granting their own money ; and of every 
opportunity of manifesting by cheerful aids, their attach- 
ment to the King, and zeal for his service, they must be 
cut off from all intercourse with their Sovereign, and 
expect not to hear of the royal approbation, they must sub- 
mit to the power of the Commons of Great Britain, and, 
precluded the blessings, shall scarcely retain the name of 
freedom. 

"May we then, most gracious Sovereign, be permitted 
humbly to implore your tender consideration of this 
unha[)[)y circumstance of your American people. May 
we pray that your ^Majesty will extend to your faithful 
people of Maryland that paternal regard which your Maj- 
esty hath so invariably shown to the just rights of all your 
subjects; and be graciously pleased to grant them such 
relief as to your Majesty's wisdom and justice shall seem 
meet." ^ 

For this non-compliance with the request of the home 
government, made in Hillsborough's letter, the governor 

1 L. II. J., Juno Ul, 17(i8. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 491 

immediately prorogued the Assembly — refraining from 
dissolving it only through fear of the consequences ; and 
thereafter the contest with the mother country was carried 
on independently of the Assembly, which for several ses- 
sions was so busily and so warmly engaged in the contro- 
versy over fees and over the clergy. An organization was 
nevertheless required for that contest. With the widening 
of the breach between the colonies and the mother country, 
the new organization of Maryland became possessed of all 
the powers of government. For a time the new popular 
government and the old proprietary government existed 
side by side ; but gradually the new caused the old to dis- 
appear. And the admirable way in which this transition 
was made was due both to the irresolution and bountiful 
good nature of Governor Eden and to the fact that the 
statesmen of Maryland were not only skilled in private 
law but were adepts in public law and not intoxicated with 
an emotional political philosophy so prevalent in those 
days. 

Within less than a year after the above-mentioned 
prorogation, several of the counties entered into resolu- 
tions of non-importation of British superfluities.^ Then 
the people of Anne Arundel County sent out an invitation 
for committees from the several counties to meet at An- 
napolis for the purpose of forming a non-importation asso- 
ciation for the whole province. A full meeting was the 
response ; and on June 22, 1769, after agreeing that the 
imposing of the offensive duties had a direct and manifest 
tendency to deprive the colonists of all political freedom, 
and that the circumstances made it necessar}^ to prevent 
the use of foreign luxuries and superfluities, it was re- 
solved not to import any of the dutiable goods — except 
small quantities of paper — not to import from Great Brit- 

1 Mdrijldnd Ga.vcUe, May 11, 1769. 



492 MARYLAND AS A I'lK tl'KI KTAUV I'liOVINCE 

aiii uiiy of the articles of mercluuulise iiiclucled in a list 
of about one hundred named in the resolutions; not to 
import any wines wliatever, or purchase the same from 
any person whatever; not to kill or suffer to be killed any 
ewe lamb yeaned before the first of May of any year; and 
not to deal with any one violating or taking advantage of 
the resolutions, but to regard him as an enemy. ^ After the 
meeting the resolutions, drawn U[) in the foim of an agree- 
ment, were circulated in each of the counties for signatures. 

While this agreement was being signed, the news came 
that the home government had decided to take off all the 
duties except that on tea. Yet that decision had been 
arrived at not on the ground that those duties were un- 
just to the colonies, but on the ground that — being laid 
on articles of British manufacture — they were "contrary 
to the true principles of commerce." It was still main- 
tained that it was expedient to raise a revenue in the 
colonies ; and. what was still more offensive to some colo- 
nists, there was a movement to revive the statutes of 
Henry VIII, for the punishment of treason committed out 
of the king's dominions, and so to construe it that persons 
charged with treason in America might be carried to Eng- 
land for trial. 

From the first, the removal of the duties on glass, paper, 
and colors caused many colonists outside of Maryland to 
be disposed to give up the non-importation association. 
But in Maryland, committees from the several counties 
met again at Annapolis in December, 1760, and unani- 
mously resolved that the resolutions passed at the June 
meeting " be most strictly adhered to, and preserved in- 
violate," and that each and every gentleman present would 
"use his utmost endeavor to those laudable ends."^ Two 

1 Mitnjliniil (iazette, June 2'.t, 1709. 

2 Ibid., December I'l, 1709. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 493 

months later, upoii the arrival in Annapolis of a brig with 
a cargo of British goods, a meeting of the citizens of An- 
napolis appointed a committee to inquire into the matter. 
When that committee had reported that the goods had 
been ordered and shipped contrary to the non-importation 
agreement, and therefoi-e ought not to be landed, the brig 
was ordered and compelled to return to London with all 
her cargo. For some time there was such firmness and 
unity in Maryland with respect to non-importation that 
British merchants were brought to a determination not to 
ship any goods to that province but such as would be 
agreeable to the associators.^ Even when, in October, 
1770, the Baltimore merchants — directly influenced by 
the Philadelphia merchants — resolved no longer to abide 
by the agreement, there was another meeting of men from 
the counties, held at Annapolis, at which it was resolved 
that the Baltimore merchants had "shown a shameful dis- 
regard as well to their own engagement as to the most 
sacred rights and liberties of America, and that no goods 
should be taken from those who broke the agreement."^ 

For more than three years after this last meeting, all 
was quiet between Maryland and the mother country. 
But during those years, the destruction of tea in Boston 
harbor had caused Parliament to pass an act for closing 
the port of Boston, and to consider a measure for subject- 
ing the people of Massachusetts to a military control ; and 
when this news reached Maryland in May, 1774, the feel- 
ing became so intense in that province that rapid progress 
was made toward a more extensive popular organization. 

At Annapolis and in the counties, meetings were called 
for choosing a committee of correspondence ; and at some 
of those meetings it was recommended that a convention 
of deputies, chosen by the several counties, be held at 

1 Eddis, p. 142 et seq. ^ Maryland Gazcttr, November 1, 1770. 



494 MARYLAND AS A PltOIMlIETAIlV PROVINCE 

Annapolis as soon as convenient for uniting all parts of 
the province in an association, and that, if agreeable to the 
sense of the sister colonies, delegates be appointed to 
attend a general congress of delegates from the other 
colonies to effect unity. ^ In accordance with that recom- 
mendation a convention of ninety-two deputies — varying 
from three to twelve for each county — met at Annapolis 
on the twentj'-second day of June, 1774. It was fust 
agreed that each county should have but one vote, and 
that a majority of votes should determine any question. 
Then it was resolved that the last offensive measures of 
Parliament were cruel and oppressive invasions of the 
natural rights of the people of Massachusetts as men, and 
of their constitutional rights as English subjects, and that 
they laid the foundation for the utter destruction of Brit- 
ish America. It was, accordingly, further resolved that 
subscriptions be opened for the relief of the people of 
Boston, that all commercial intercourse with the mother 
country be broken off, and that there should be no dealings 
with the people of any colony that should refuse to join 
in the general plan. Lastly, this convention recommended 
that a congress of delegates from all the colonies should 
assemble at an early date ; it appointed Matthew Tilghnian, 
Thomas Johnson, Jr., Robert Goldsborough, William Paca, 
and Samuel Chase delegates for ^Maryland ; and it directed 
that they should on their return call the county deputies 
together again, and lay before them the measures adopted 
l)y the general congress.^ 

That general congress assembled at Philadelphia on 
September 5, 1774, and in the following month the 
Marylanders had their tea burning. In October of this 
year there arrived at Annapolis the brig PenfUl Steward 
with an assorted cargo, in which were seventeen packages 

1 Mdnjlaml (ui.uUe, May 20, 1774. 2 //,/,;.^ Jii„e 30, 1774. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 495 

of tea consigned to James and Joseph Williams, mer- 
chants of that city. iVnthony Stewart, the owner of the 
brig, was one of the signers of the non-importation agree- 
ment; but in order to land the rest of the cargo, he paid 
the duty on the tea. Thereupon, the four members of the 
committee for Anne Arundel County that were in the city 
called a meeting of the people. At that meeting it was 
unanimously resolved that the tea should not be hinded, 
and a committee of twelve was appointed to attend the 
landing of the other goods and prevent t\\e landing of the 
tea. A little later eight of the standing committee for 
the county called the two Williamses and Stewart before 
them; and after considering their offer to destroy the tea 
and humbly confess their offence, the committee was of 
the opinion that nothing further ought to be required. 
But this was not satisfactory to all the people, and not 
only was the tea burned, but Stewart, fearing a riot, 
offered to burn the brig with his own hands. His offer 
was accepted, and the crowd watched until it was burned 
to the water's edge.^ 

The Maryland delegates to the Continental Congress at 
Philadelphia issued a call on the third day of November, 
1774, for the county deputies to meet at Annapolis on the 
twenty-sixth day of the same month. Between the day of 
the call and the day of the meeting there was elected in 
each of the several counties — by those who were qualified 
to vote for delegates to the lower house of the proprietary 
assembly ^ — a large committee of observation for carrying 
into execution the association that had been agreed upon 
in the Continental Congress, a much smaller committee of 
correspondence, and deputies to the provincial convention. 
When the convention was opened on the twenty-first, sev- 
eral of the counties, from lack of sufficient notice of the 

1 Maryland Gazette, October 20, 1774. 



496 MARYLAND AS A PKOFKIETAKV PROVINCE 

time of meeting, were not fully represented ; and so, after 
the proceedings of the Continental Congress had been unan- 
imously ajtproved, there was an adjournment to the eighth 
day of December. But at the adjourned meeting eighty- 
live deputies were present, and they resolved that no in- 
habitant of the province ought to kill a sheep under four 
years of age, that more flax, hemp, and cotton ought to be 
raised, that the manufacture of cotton and linen goods 
ought to be increased, that all men between the ages of 
sixteen and fifty ought to form themselves into militia 
companies ; they also resolved, unanimously, that if an 
attempt should be made to carry into execution by force in 
that colony the late acts of parliament, I'elative to ]\Iassa- 
chusetts, or if an effort should be made to execute by force, 
in that or any other colon}', the assumed power of Parlia- 
ment to tax the colonies, Maryland would support those 
attacked to the utmost of her power. In accordance with 
the agreement made at the Continental Congress that 
Maryland should raise XI 0,000, this sum was now ap- 
portioned among the several counties, and the committee 
of observation in each county was authorized to lay out 
what should be raised in the purchase of arms and ammu- 
nition. Deputies to the next Continental Congress were 
a[)pointed and authorized to agree to all measures which 
such congress sliould deem necessary and effectual to obtain 
a redress of American grievances. A committee of obser- 
vation for the whole province was also appointed and given 
directions with respect to calling the next provincial con- 
vention.^ 

That convention met on April 24, 1775, and continued 
in session nine days. One hundred deputies were present, 
they voted to raise X600 more by subscription, and they 
passed the following resolutions : " Resolved that his 

1 Marylaud Gazette, December 15, 1774. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 497 

Majesty King George III is lawful and rightful King 
of Great Britain, and the dominions thereunto belong- 
ing, and that the good people of this province do owe, 
and will bear faithful and true allegiance to our said 
lawful and rightful King, as the sovereign, constitutional 
guardian, and protector of the rights of all his subjects. 

" Resolved, that it is earnestly recommended to the inhab- 
itants of this province to continue the regulation of the 
militia, and that particular attention be paid to forming 
and exercising the militia throughout the province, and 
that subscriptions for the purposes by the said convention 
recommended be forthwith completed and applied. 

" Resolved, that it is the sense of this convention that the 
Honorable Matthew Tilghman, Esq., Thomas Johnson, 
Jr., Robert Goldsborough, Samuel Chase, William Paca, 
John Hall, and Thomas Stone, Esquires, the delegates 
of our province, or any three or more of them, do join 
with the delegates of the other colonies and provinces, 
at such time and place as shall be agreed on, and in con- 
junction with them deliberate upon the present distressed 
and alarming state of the British Colonies in North 
America, and concur with them in such measures as shall 
be thought necessary for the defence and protection 
thereof, and most conducive to the public welfare. And 
as this convention has nothing so much at heart as a 
happy reconciliation of the differences between the mother 
country and the Biitish Colonies in North America, upon 
a basis of constitutional freedom, so has it a confidence in 
the wisdom and prudence of the said delegates, that they 
will not proceed to the last extremity, unless in their 
judgments they shall be convinced that such measure is 
indispensably necessary for the safety and preservation of 
our liberties and privileges. That in the present state 
of public affairs, this convention is sensible that measures 
2k 



498 .MARYLAND AS A PKOI'UIETAKY PllOVINX'E 

to be adopted by the Continental Congress must depend 
upon many events which may happen to arise ; and relying 
(iimly upon the wisdom and integrity of their delegates, 
this province will, as far as in their power, carry into 
execution such measures as shall be agreed on and recom- 
mended by the general congress." ^ 

That there should be a reconciliation with the mother 
country was still the prevailing desire in Maryland, but 
the course of events in the north was against it ; and after 
the news of the engagements at Concord and Lexington, 
and the i,.'ws of the battle of Bunker Hill had been re- 
ceived, the need of a better organized provisional gov- 
ernment was felt. To that end, therefore, the convention 
again a,ssenil)led on the twenty-sixth day of July, 1775, and, 
as tlie l)asis of the new government, issued the following 
declaiation and [)ledge, which was subscribed lirst by the 
deputies themselves and then offered for subscription to 
the fieemen in the several counties : — 

" The long [)remeditated, and now avowed, design of the 
liritish government, to raise a revenue from the property 
of tlie colonists without their consent, on the gift, grant, 
and disposition of the Commons of Gieat Britain ; and tlie 
arbitrary and vindictive statutes passed under color of sul>- 
duing a riot, to subdue by military force and by famine 
the Massachusetts Bay ; the unlimited power assumed by 
Parliament to alter the ciiarter of that Province and the 
constitutions of all the colonies, thereby destroying the 
essential securities of the lives, liberties, and properties 
of the colonists ; the commencement of hostilities by the 
ministerial forces, and the cruel prosecution of the war 
against the peoi)le of Massachusetts Bay, followed by 
General Gage's proclamation, declaring almost the whole 
of the inhabitants of the united colonies, by name or de- 

Manjhind Gazette, May 4, 1775. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 499 

scription, rebels and traitors, are sufficient causes to arm 
a free people in defence of their liberty, and justify re- 
sistance, no longer dictated by prudence merely, but by 
necessit^s Jind leave no other alternative but base submis- 
sion or manly opposition to uncontrollable tyranny. The 
Congress chose the latter ,• and for the express purpose of 
securing and defending the united colonies, and preserv- 
ing them in safety against all attempts to carry the above- 
mentioned acts into execution by force of arms, resolved 
that the said colonies be immediately put into a state of 
defence, and now supports, at the joint expense, an array 
to restrain the further violence, and repel the future 
attacks of a disappointed and exasperated enemy. 

" We, therefore, inhabitants of the Province of Mary- 
land, firmly persuaded that it is necessary and justifiable 
to repel force by force, do approve of the opposition by 
arms to the British troops employed to enforce obedience 
to tlie late acts and statutes of the British Parliament for 
raising a revenue in America, and altering and changing 
the charter and constitution of the Massachusetts Bay, 
and for destroying the essential securities for their lives, 
liberties, and properties of the subjects in the united 
colonies. And we do unite and associate as one band, 
and firmly and solemnly engage and pledge ourselves to 
each other and to America, that we will, to the utmost 
of our power, promote and support the present opposition, 
carrying on as well by arms as by the continental associa- 
tion restraining our commerce. 

" And as in these times of public danger, and until a 
reconciliation with Great Britain on constitutional princi- 
ples is effected (an event we ardently wish ma^^ soon take 
place), the energy of government may be greatly impaired, 
so that even zeal unrestrained may be productive of anarchy 
and confusion, we do in like manner unite, associate, and 



500 MARYLAND AS A PliuriUETAliY PRO V INCH 

solemnly engage in the maintenance of good order and the 
public peace, to support the civil power in the due execu- 
tion of the laws, so far as may be consistent witli tlie plan of 
opposition ; and to defend with our utmost power all per- 
sons from every species of outrage to lliemselves or their 
property, and to prevent any punishment from being in- 
flicted on any offenders other than such as shall be ad- 
judged by the civil magistrate, the Continental Congress, 
our Convention, Council of Safety, or Committees of 
Observation." 

Unrestricted power was reserved for the convention 
itself, which, in the future, was to be composed of five 
delegates from each county elected for one year. When 
tlie convention was not in session, its power was to be exer- 
cised by a council of safety of its own choosing. In each 
county a committee of observation was also to be elected 
annually, — the election to be held under the inspection of 
the delegates of the county for the time being, — ^and these 
committees of observations were to execute the will of the 
convention or of the council of safety.^ 

But so strongly attached to the old constitution of Mary- 
land were the men who organized this provisional govern- 
ment that they still cherished liopes of a reconciliation. In 
their instructions of January, 1776, for the delegates to the 
Continental Congress the members of the convention said: 
"The experience which we and our ancestors have had of 
the mildness and equity of the English constitution, under 
which we have grown up and enjoyed a state of felicity 
not exceeded by any people we know of, until the grounds 
of the present controversy were laid by the ministry and 
Parliament of Great Britain, has most strongly endeared 
to us that form of govci'iinicut from whence these bless- 
ings have been derived, and makes us ardi-ntly wish for a 

1 Maryland Gazi-tte, August 14, 1775. 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 501 

reconciliation with the mother country upon terms that 
may insure to these colonies an equal and permanent free- 
dom. To this constitution we are attached, not merely 
by habit, but by principle, being in our judgments per- 
suaded it is of all known systems best calculated to secure 
the liberty of the subject, and to guard against despotism 
on the one hand and licentiousness on the other. Im- 
pressed with these sentiments, we warmly recommend to 
you to keep in your view the avowed end and purpose for 
which these colonies originally associated, — the redress of 
American grievances and securing the rights of the colo- 
nists." Farther on in these instructions, the delegates were 
expressly forbidden to assent to a declaration of indepen- 
dence, or to any alliance with any foreign power, or any 
confederation of the colonies, which would necessarily 
lead to separation, unless in their judgments such a course 
should be deemed absolutely necessary for the preserva- 
tion of the united colonies. 

The sentiment in favor of independence was, however, 
growing in the Continental Congress, and the Maryland 
delegates soon found themselves alone in holding back. 
When it had come to this, the convention — mindful of 
the fact that it had been empowered to exercise its func- 
tions only with a view to a reconciliation, and being of the 
opinion that the sovereign power was in the people — 
summoned the delegates back from congress and asked the 
people of each county to instruct their deputies how to act 
with regard to the Declaration of Independence. The 
people were by this time ready for the declaration. The 
restrictions on the Maryland delegates were accordingly 
rescinded. On the fourth of July they adopted the famous 
Declaration of Independence, and thereafter even the 
shadow of the proprietary government was no more. 

The year before. Governor Eden, at the request of a com- 



502 MARYLAND AS A PROlMtlETAUY PROVINCE 

mittee of the coiiveution, liatl given up the arms and ammu- 
nition lliut had been in his keeping as commander-in-chief. 
By repeated prorogations he had kept the Assembly from 
sitting since April, 1774. Although after the expiration 
of the time for which the members of the lower house had 
been elected he issued new writs of election, yet on June 
24, 1776, he left the province, and the convention on the 
day following forbade the election. With the Declaration 
of Independence the way was therefore clear for the fram- 
ing of a new constitution to take the place of the lord 
proprietor's charter. 



From chaos to order and to the triumph of mind over 
matter, the universe moves on. As tlie earth is made to 
yield more of what man needs, society becomes more 
extensively organized; and as society becomes more 
extensively organized, the stronger individuals find them- 
selves in an environment conducive to a larger and a 
higher development. For this reason industrialism is the 
primar}^ basis of progress. At a time when it was sup- 
posed that the material welfare of a nation was determined 
by the amount oi precious metals which she had in her 
possession, Spain discovered colonies rich in such metals, 
while England discovered those from which could bo had 
only the raw materials for manufactuie. But by the utiliz- 
ing of such materials English industries were develoj)ed, 
and, as a consequence, a freer government was demanded. 

Maryland, although founded by a Catholic, was never 
intended merely as an asylum for persecuted Catholics, 
neither was it intended as a utopia in which the relations 
between members of different religious sects should be 
regulated solely by the spirit of brotherly love. Lord 
Baltimore laid a more sure foundation ; and the people of 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 503 

his province sought riches in tilling the soil. For a period 
of more than one hundred years the larger part of the soil 
which they tilled was so well adapted to tobacco culture 
that tobacco was tlie staple product. While this fact, 
through industrial dependence, kept the Marylanders in 
close touch and sympathy with the mother country, 
through need of tobacco inspection and payment in tobacco 
for public services, it invigorated the opposition to the 
lord proprietor. Although tobacco culture was condu- 
cive to slave labor, that very fact taught the freemen to 
value their own freedom all the more highly. The fact 
that the people were both the tenants of the lord proprie- 
tor and the subjects of his government increased the force 
of the industrial pressure upon the government. And as 
the lord proprietor, at the very outset, promised religious 
toleration in the interest of material success, so, through- 
out the entire colonial era, the church was weak, and 
social expediency or industrial Avelfare, instead of religious 
superstition or bigotry, was made the basis of law. 

But through all the years when these industrial forces 
were making for popular government, a high respect for 
law was maintained. The first lord proprietor was a 
trained and skilful administrator, and for forty-three years 
he laid an orderly foundation. The Baltimore family then 
degenerated about as fast as the lord proprietor lost power 
in the government; but from the time the lower house 
won its victory in the controversy over English statutes 
the proprietary governors of Maryland, with the exception 
of two short intervals, were the much-beloved Ogle, Sharpe, 
and Eden. The men, who, above all others, moulded public 
opinion, were lawyers of the nobler type. And there was 
a generally firm adherence to the laws and customs of the 
mother country. 

Under these conditions, the transition from monarchy to 



504 MARYLAND AS A PROl'IlIETAllY PROVINCE 

democracy in Maryland was gradual and orderly. In tlie 
assembly halls, in the course of regular [jarliamentary pro- 
cedure, the representatives of tlie people exercised their 
power of debate in the long struggle for greater equality 
of rights to life and to property. After many failures, a 
thriving industrial system, with a sound currency, was 
established ; and by the close of the colonial era com- 
modious public buildings were in process of construction, 
roads were being built, there was a growing impatience for 
the establishment of a better school system, and the con- 
sciousness of the need of competent religious teachers had 
been quickened. Above all, public life in proprietary 
Maryland had proved to be an excellent school for the 
trainingf of men in statecraft. 

Naturally, therefore, the truly patriotic statesmen of 
Maryland longed for a reconciliation with the mother 
country, in order that their old government might be con- 
tinued. But when it was seen that tliis was not to be, 
Maryland joined with her sister colonies in severing the 
maternal tie ; and after that, the statesmen of the Mary- 
land scliool contributed largely of their power in making, 
perfecting, and preserving the now much cherished federal 
tie. When the larger commonwealths were trying to make 
good their claim to territory west to the Mississippi and 
even to the Pacific, and when the Articles of Confedera- 
tion had been signed by all the other commonwealths, 
Marj'land refused to sign tliem until the claims in question 
had been disallowed. As a consequence, a greater equality 
among the old commonwealths was preserved, and the 
general government came into the possession of the first 
territory out of which new commonwealths were to be 
erected and admitted into the union. When the Articles 
of Confederation had been found to be insufficient, the first 
meeting that looked toward the formation of a more perfect 



RELATIONS WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT 505 

union was held at the capital of Maryland. During the 
War of 1812, when the national capital was in the pos- 
session of tlie enemy, and when a part of New England 
was preparing to go out of the union, Francis Scot Key, 
a poet and eminent jurist, reared among the beautiful 
hills of Frederick County, Maryland, gave to his country 
that thrilling national hymn, — always a power for national 
unity, — "The Star-Spangled Banner." Finally, when 
Missouri was ready for admission into the union, and the 
excited abolitionists — with more good intentions than 
sound statesmanship, or ability to interpret the powers of 
congress — contended that she should be admitted with re- 
strictions, the brilliant Pin^hney, trained in the old school 
of Maryland statesmen, demonstrated in terms unmistak- 
ably clear that in the case in liand congress had only the 
power to admit into an equal union of commonwealths 
equally sovereign ; and once more the union was left 
unimpaired. 



APPENDIX. 

THE CHARTER OF MARYLAND.^ 

Charles, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, 
and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. To all to whom 
these presents shall come. Greeting. 

II. Whereas our well beloved and right trusty subject 
Cecilius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, in our kingdom of Ire- 
land, son and heir of George Calvert, knight, late baron of Bal- 
timore, in our said kingdom of Ireland, treading in the steps of 
his father, being animated with a laudable, and pious zeal for 
extending the Christian religion, and also the territories of our 
empire, hath humbly besought leave of us, that he may trans- 
port, by his own industry and expense, a numerous colony of 
the English nation, to a certain region, herein after described, 
in a country hitherto uncultivated, in the parts of America, and 
partly occupied by savages, having no knowledge of the Divine 
Being, and that all that region, with some certain privileges 
and jurisdictions, appertaining unto the wholesome government 
and state of his colony and region aforesaid, may by our royal 
highness be given, granted, and confirmed unto him and his 
hei s. 

III. Know ye therefore, that We, encouraging with our 
royal favor, the pious and nol)le purpose of the aforesaid barons 
of Baltimore, of our special grace, certain knowledge, and mere 
motion, have given, granted, and confirmed, and by this our 
present charter, for us, our heirs, and successors, do give, grant, 
and confirm, unto the aforesaid Cecilius, now baron of Balti- 
more, his heirs, and assigns, all that part of the Peninsula, or 

1 Baton's translation from the Latin ; for the Latin see Proceedings of 
Lne Council, 1C3G to 1007, pp. 3-12. 

507 



508 APPENDIX 

Chersonese, lying in the parts of America, between the ocean 
on the east, and tlie bay of Chesapeake on the west, divided 
from the residue thereof by a i-ight line drawn from the prom- 
ontory, or head-land, called Watkin's Point, situate upon the 
bay aforesaid, near the river Wighco, on the west, unto the main 
ocean on the east ; and between that boundary on the south, 
unto that part of the bay of Delaware on the north, which 
lieth under the fortieth degree of north latitude from the 
equinoctial, where New England is terminated : and all the 
tract of that land within the metes vniderwritten (that is to 
say) passing from the said bay, called Delaware bay, in a right 
line, by the degree aforesaid, unto the true meridian of the 
first fountain of the river Potomac, thence verging toward the 
south, unto the further bank of the said river, and following 
the same on the west and south, unto a certain place called 
Cinquack, situate near the mouth of the said river, where it 
disembogues into the aforesaid bay of Chesapeake, and thence 
by the shortest line unto the aforesaid promontory or place, 
called Watkin's Point ; so that the whole tract of laud, divided 
by the line aforesaid, between the main ocean and Watkin's 
Point, unto the promontory called Cape Charles, and every the 
ap})endages thereof, may entirely remain excepted for ever to 
us, our heirs, and successors. 

IV. Also We do grant, and likewise confirm unto the said 
bai'on of P>altiniore, his heirs, and assigns, all islands and islets 
within the limits aforesaid, all and singular the islands and 
islets, from the eastern shore of the aforesaid region, towards 
the east, which have been, or shall be formed in the sea, situate 
within ten marine leagues from the said shore ; with all and 
singular the ports, harbors, bays, rivers, and straits belonging 
to the I'egion or islands aforesaid, and all the soil, plains, woods, 
mountains, marshes, lakes, rivers, bays, and straits, situate, or 
being within the metes, bounds, and limits aforesaid, with the 
fishings of every kind of fish, as well of whales, sturgeons, and 
other royal fish, as of other fish in the sea, bays, straits, or 
rivers, within the premises, and the fish there taken : and 
moreover all veins, mines, and quarries, as well opened as 



APPENDIX 509 

hidden, already found, or that shall be found within the region, 
islands, or limits aforesaid, of gold, silver, gems, and precious 
stones, and any other whatsoever, whether they be of stones, 
or metals, or of any other thing, or matter whatsoever : and 
furthermore the patronages and advowsons of all churches 
which (with the increasing worship and religion of Christ) 
within the said region, islands, islets, and limits aforesaid, 
hereafter shall happen to be built, together with license and 
faculty of erecting and founding churches, chapels, and places 
of w^orship, in convenient and suitable places, within the prem- 
ises, and of causing the same to be dedicated and consecrated 
according to the ecclesiastical laws of our kingdom of England,^ 
with all, and singular such, and as ample rights, jurisdictions, 
privileges, prerogatives, royalties, liberties, immunities, and 
royal rights, and temporal franchises whatsoever, as well by 
sea as by land, within the region, islands, islets, and limits 
aforesaid, to be had, exercised, used, and enjoyed, as any bishop 
of Durham, within the bishopric or county palatine of Durham, 
in our kingdom of England, ever heretofore hath had, held, 
used, or enjoyed, or of right could, or ought to have, hold, use, 
or enjoy. 

V. And We do by these presents, for us, our heirs and suc- 
cessors, make, create, and constitute him, the now baron of 
Baltimore, and his heirs, the true and absolute lords and pro- 
prietaries of the region aforesaid, and of all other the prem- 
ises (except the before excepted) saving always the faith and 
allegiance and sovereign dominion due to us, our heirs, and 
successors; to have, hold, possess, and enjoy the aforesaid 
region, islands, islets, and other the premises, unto the afore- 
said now baron of Baltimore, and to his heirs and assigns, to 
the sole and proper behoof and nse of him, the now baron of 
Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, for ever. [^To hold of us, our 
heirs and successors, kings of England, as of our castle of 
Windsor, in our county of Berks, in free and common socage, 
by fealty only for all services, and not in capite, nor by knight's 

1 See Bozman, Vol. II, p. 11. 



510 APPENDIX 

service, yielding therefor unto us, our heirs and successors two 
Indian arrows of those parts, to be delivered at the said castle 
of ^Yindsor, every year, on Tuesday in Easter-week : and also 
the fifth i)art of all gold and silver ore, which shall happen 
from time to time, to be found within the aforesaid limits. 

VI. Now, that the aforesaid region, thus by us granted and 
described, may be eminently distinguished above all other 
regions of that territory, and decorated with more ample titles, 
know ye, that We, of our more special grace, certain knowledge, 
and mere motion, have thought fit that the said region and 
islands be erected into a province, as out of the plenitude of 
our royal power and i)rerogative. We do, for us, our heirs and 
successors, erect and incorporate the same into a province, and 
nominate the same Makvlaxd, by which name We will that 
it shall from henceforth be called. 

VII. And forasmuch as We have above made and ordained 
the aforesaid now baron of I>altimore, the true lord and pro- 
prietary of the whole province aforesaid, know ye therefore 
further, that jWe, for us, our heirs and successors, do grant unto 
the said now baron, (in whose fidelity, prudence, justice, and 
provident circumspection of mind, We repose the greatest con- 
fidence) and to his heirs, for the good and happy government 
of the said province, free, full, and absolute jiower, by the tenor 
of these presents, to ordain, make, and enact laws, of what kind 
soever, according to their sound discretions, whether relating 
to the public state of the said province, or the private utility 
of individuals, of and with the advice, assent, and ai)probatiou 
of the freemen of the same province, or of the greater part of 
them, or of their delegates or deputies, whom we^ill shall be 
called together for the framing of laws, when, and as often as 
need shall require, by the aforesaid now baron of lialtiniore, 
and his heirs, and in the form which shall seem best to him or 
them, and the same to publish under the seal of the aforesaid 
now l)aron of Baltimore, and his heirs, and duly to execute the 
same upon all persons, for the time being, within the afore- 
said province, and the limits thereof, or under his or their gov- 
ernment and power, in sailing toward Maryland, or thence 



APPENDIX 511 

returning, outward-bound, either to England, or elsewhere, 
whether to any other part of our, or of any foreign dominions, 
wheresoever established, by the imposition of fines, imprison- 
ment, and other punishment whatsoever ; even if it be necessary, 
and the quality of the offence require it, by privation of mem- 
ber, or life, by him the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, and 
his heirs, or by his or their deputy, lieutenant, judges, justices, 
magistrates, officers, and ministers, to be constituted and 
appointed according to the tenor and true intent of these pres- 
ents, and to constitute and ordain judges, justices, magistrates 
and officers, of what kind, for what cause, and with what power 
soever, within that land, and the sea of those parts, and in such 
form as to the said now baron of Baltimore, or his heirs, shall 
seem most fitting : and also to remit, release, pardon, and 
abolish, all crimes and offences whatsoever against such laws, 
whether before, or after judgment passed; and to do all and 
singular other' things belonging to the completion of justice, 
and to courts, pretorian judicatories, and tribunals, judicial 
forms and modes of proceeding, although express mention 
thereof in these presents be not made ; and, by judges by them 
delegated, to award process, hold pleas, and determine in those 
courts, i)retorian judicatories, and tribunals, in all actions, suits, 
cases, and matters whatsoever, as well criminal as personal, real 
and mixed, and pretorian : which said laws, so to be published 
as above said, We will, enjoin, charge, and command, to be most 
absolute and firm in law, and to be kept in those parts by all 
the subjects and liege-men of us, our heirs and successors, so 
far as they concern them, and to be inviolably observed under 
the penalties therein expressed, or to be expressed. So never- 
theless, that the laws aforesaid be consonant to reason, and be 
not repugnant or contrary, but (so far as conveniently may be) 
agreeable to the laws, statutes, customs, and rights of this our 
kingdom of England. 

VIII. And forasmuch as, in the government of so great a 
province, sudden accidents may frequently happen, to which 
it will be necessary to a])ply a remedy, before the freeholders 
of the said province, their delegates, or deputies, can be called 



512 APPENDIX 

together for the framing of laws ; neither will it be fit that so 
great a number of people should immediately, on such emergent 
occasion, be called together. We, therefore, for the better 
government of so great a province, do will and ordain, and bv 
these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, do grant unto 
the said now baron of Baltimore, and to his heirs, that the 
aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, and his heirs, by them- 
selves, or by* their magistrates and officers, thereunto duly to 
be constituted as aforesaid, may, and can make and constitute 
fit and wholesome ordinances from time to time, to be kept and 
observed within the province aforesaid, as well for the conser- 
vation of the peace, as for the better government of the people 
inhabiting therein, and publicly to notify the same to all per- 
sons whom the same in any wise do or may affect. "Which 
ordinances We will to be inviolably observed within the said 
province, under the pains to be expressed in the same. So 
that the said ordinances be consonant to reason, and be not 
repugnant nor contrary, but (so far as conveniently may be 
done) agreeable to the laws, statutes, or rights of our kingdom 
of England : and so that the same ordinances do not, in any 
sort, extend to oblige, bind, charge, or take away the right or 
interest of any person or persons, of, or in member, life, free- 
hold, goods or chattels. 

IX. Furthermore, that the new colony may more happily 
increase by a multitude of people resorting thither, and at the 
same time may be more firmly secured from the incursions of 
savages, or of other enemies, pirates, and ravagers : We, there- 
fore, for us, our heirs and successors, do by these presents give 
and grant power, license, and liberty, to all the liege-men and 
subjects, present and future, of us, our heirs and successors, 
except such to whom it shall be expressly forbidden, to trans- 
port themselves and their families to the said province, with 
fitting vessels, and suitable provisions, and therein to settle, 
dwell, and inhabit ; and to build and fortify castles, forts, and 
other places of strengtli, at the apixiintment of the aforesaid 
now baron of Baltimore, and his heirs, for the public and 
their own defence ; the statute of fugitives, or any other what- 



APPENDIX 513 

soever to the contrary of the premises in any wise notwith- 
standing. 

X. We will also, and of our more abundant grace, for us, 
our heirs and successors, do tirmly charge, constitute, ordain, 
and command, that the said province be of our allegiance ; and 
that all and singular the subjects and liege-men of us, our heirs 
and successors, transplanted, or hereafter to be transplanted 
into the province aforesaid, and the children of them, and of 
others their descendants, whether already born there, or here- 
after to be born, be and shall be natives and liege-men of us, 
our heirs and successors, of our kingdom of England and Ire- 
laud ; and in all things shall be held, treated, reputed, and 
esteemed as the faithful liege-men of us, and our heirs and 
successors, born within our kingdom of England ; also lands, 
tenements, revenues, services, and other hereditaments what- 
soever, within our kingdom of England, and other our dominions, 
to inherit, or otherwise purchase, receive, take, have, hold, buy, 
and possess, and the same to use and enjoy, and the same to 
give, sell, alien and bequeath ; and likewise all privileges, 
franchises and liberties of this our kingdom of England, freely, 
quietly, and peaceably to have and possess, and the same may 
use and enjoy in the same manner as our liege-men born, or to 
be born within our said kingdom of England, without impedi- 
ment, molestation, vexation, impeachment, or grievance of us, 
or any of our heirs or successors ; any statute, act, ordinance, 
or provision to the contrary thereof, notwithstanding. 

XI. Furthermore, that our subjects may be incited to under- 
take this expedition with a ready and cheerful mind : know 
ye, that We, of our special grace, certain knowledge, and mere 
motion, do, by the tenor of these presents, give and grant, as 
well to the aforesaid baron of Baltimore, and to his heirs, as 
to all other persons who shall from time to time repair to the 
said province, either for the sake of inhabiting, or of trading 
with the inhabitants of the province aforesaid, full license to 
ship and lade in any the ports of us, our heirs and successors, 
all and singular their goods, as well movable, as immovable, 
wares and merchandises, likewise grain of what sort soever, 

2 L 



514 AIM'KNDIX 

ami otlier things whatsoever necessary f()r food and clothing, by 
the laws and statutes of our kingdoms and dominions, not pi-o- 
hibited to be transported out of the said kingdoms ; and the 
same to transi)ort, by themselves, or their servants or assigns, 
into the said province, without the impediment or molestation 
of us, our heirs or successors, or of any otticers of us, our heirs 
or successors, (saving unto us, our heirs and successors, the 
im[)ositions, subsidies, customs, and other dues payal)le for the 
same goods and merchandises) any statute, act, ordinance, or 
other thing whatsoever to the contrary uotwitlistanding. 

XII. r>ut because, that in so remote a region, placed among 
so many barbarous nations, the incursions as well of the barba- 
rians themselves, as of other enemies, pirates and ravagers, 
probably will be feared, therefore We have given, and for us, 
our heirs, and successors, do give by these ])resents as full and 
unrestrained power, as any captain-general of an army ever 
hath had unto the aforesaid now baron of lUiltimore, and to 
his heirs and assigns, by themselves, or by their captains, or 
other officers, to summon to their standards, and to array all 
men, of whatsoever condition, or wheresoever born, for the time 
being, in the said })rovince of Marylaml, to wage war, and to 
pursue, even beyond the limits of their province, the enemies 
and ravagers aforesaid, infesting those parts by land and by 
sea, and (if God shall grant it) to vanquish and captivate them, 
and the captives to put to death, or, according to their discre- 
tion, to save, and to do all other and singular the things which 
appertain, or have been accustomed to appertain unto the 
authority and office of a captain-general of an army. 

XIII. We also will, and by this our charter, do give unto 
the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, and to his hei'rs and 
assigns, power, liberty, and authority, that, in case of rebellion, 
sudden tumult, or sedition, if any (which God forbid) should 
ha])i)en to arise, whetlier ui)on land within the province afore- 
said, or upon the high sea in making a voyage to the said 
province of Maryland, or in returning theiu*e, they may. by 
themselves, or by their captains, or other officers, thereunto 
deputed umler their seals (to whom We, for us, our heirs and 



APPENDIX 515 

successors, by these presents, do give and grant the fullest 
power and authority) exercise martial law as freely, and in as 
ample manner and form, as any captain-general of an army, by 
virtue of his office may, or hath accustomed to use the same, 
against the seditious authors of innovations in those parts, 
withdrawing themselves from the government of him or them, 
refusing to serve in war, flying over to the enemy, exceeding 
their leave of absence, deserters, or otherwise howsoever offend- 
ing against the rule, law, or discipline of war. 

XIV. Moreover, lest in so remote and far distant a region, 
every access to honors and dignities may seem to be precluded, 
and utterly barred, to men well born, who are preparing to 
engage in the present expedition, and desirous of deserving 
well, both in peace and war, of us, and our kingdoms ; for this 
cause, We, for us, our heirs and successors, do give free and 
plenary power to the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, and to 
his heirs and assigns, to confer favors, rewards, and honors, 
upon such subjects, inhabiting within the province aforesaid, 
as shall be well deserving, and to adorn them with whatsoever 
titles and dignities they shall appoint; (so that they be not 
such as are now used in England) also to erect and incorporate 
towns into boroughs, and boroughs into cities, with suitable 
privileges and immunities, according to the merits of the inhab- 
itants, and convenience of the places ; and to do all and singular 
other things in the premises, which to him or them shall seem 
fitting and convenient; even although they shall be such as, in 
their own nature, require a more special commandment and 
warrant than in these presents may be expressed. 

XV. We will also, and by these presents do, for us, our heirs 
and successors, give and grant license by this our charter, unto 
the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, 
and to all persons whatsoever, who are, or shall be residents 
and inhabitants of the province aforesaid, freely to import and 
unlade, by themselves, their servants, factors or assigns, all 
wares and merchandises whatsoever, which shall be collected 
out of the fruits and commodities of the said province, whether 
the product of the land or the sea, into any the ports whatso- 



516 APPENDIX 

ever of us, our heirs and successors, of England or Ireland, or 
otherwise to dispose of the same there; and, if need be, within 
one year, to be computed immediately from the time of unlad- 
ing thereof, to lade the same merchandises again, in the same, 
or other ships, and to export the same to any other countries 
they shall think proper, whether belonging to us, or any foreign 
power which shall be in amity with us, our heirs or successors : 
provided always, that they be bound to pay for the same to us, 
our heirs and successors, such customs and impositions, sub- 
sidies and taxes, as our other subjects of our kingdom of Eng- 
land, for the time being, shall be bound to pay, beyond which 
we will that the inhabitants of the aforesaid province of the 
said land, called ^Maryland, shall not be burdened. 

XVI. And furthermore, of our more ample special grace, 
and of our certain knowledge, and mere motion. We do, for us, 
our heirs and successors, grant unto the aforesaid now baron of 
Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, full and absolute power and 
authority to make, erect, and constitute, within the province of 
Maryland, and the islands and islets aforesaid, such, and so 
many sea-ports, harbors, creeks, and other places of unlading 
and discharge of goods and merchandises out of ships, boats, 
and other vessels, and of lading in the same, and in so many, and 
such places, and with such rigiits, jurisdictions, liberties, and 
privileges, unto such ports respecting, as to him or them 
shall seem most expedient: And, that all and every the ships, 
boats, and other vessels whatsoever, coming to, or going from 
the province aforesaid, for the sake of merchandising, shall be 
laden and unladen at such ports only as shall be so erected and 
constituted by the said now baron of Baltimore, his heirs and 
assigns, any usage, custom, or any other thing whatsoever to 
the contrary notwithstanding. Saving always to us, our heirs 
and successors, and to all the subjects of our kingdoms of Eng- 
land and Ireland, of us, our heirs and successors, the liberty 
of fishing for sea-fish, as well in the sea, bays, straits, and navi- 
gable rivers, as in the haibors. bays, and creeks of the province 
aforesaid; and the privilege of salting and drying fish on the 
shores of the same province ; and, for that cause, to cut down 



APPENDIX 517 

and take hedging-wood and twigs there growing, and to build 
liLits and cabins, necessary in tliis behalf, in the same manner 
as heretofore they reasonably might, or have used to do. Which 
liberties and privileges, the said subjects of us, our heirs and 
successors, shall enjoy, without notable damage or injury in 
any wise to be done to the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, 
his heirs or assigns, or to the residents and inhabitants of the 
same province in the ports, creeks, and shores aforesaid, and 
especially in the woods and trees there growing. And if any 
person shall' do damage or injury of this kind, he shall incur 
the peril and pain of the heavy displeasure of us, our heirs 
and successors, and of the due chastisement of the laws, besides 
making satisfaction. 

XYII. Moreover, We will, appoint, and ordain, and by these 
presents, for us, our heirs and successors, do grant unto the 
aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, that 
the same baron of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, from 
time to time, forever, shall have, and enjoy the taxes and sub- 
sidies payable, or arising within the ports, harbors, and other 
creeks and places aforesaid, within the province aforesaid, for 
wares bought and sold, and things there to be laden, or unladen, 
to be reasonably assessed by them, and the people there as 
aforesaid, on emergent occasion ; to whom we grant power by 
these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, to assess and 
impose the said taxes and subsidies there, upon just cause, and 
in due proportion. 

XYIII. And furthermore, of our special grace, and certain 
knowledge, and mere motion, We have given, granted, and 
confirmed, and by these presents, for us, our heirs, and succes- 
sors, do give, grant, and confirm, unto the aforesaid now baron 
of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, full and absolute license, 
power^ and authority, that he, the aforesaid now baron of Balti- 
more, his heirs and assigns, from time to time hereafter, for 
ever, may and can, at his or their will and pleasure, assign, 
alien, grant, demise, or enfeoff so many, such, and proportionate 
parts and parcels of the premises, to any person or pei'sons 
willing to purchase the same, as they shall think convenient, 



518 ArrENiHX 

to have ami to hold to the same person or persons willing to 
take or purchase the same, and his and their heirs and assigns, 
in fee-simi)le or fee-tail, or for term of life, lives, or years ; 
to hold of the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, his heirs and 
assigns, by so many, such, and so great services, customs and 
rents of this kind, as to the same now baron of Baltimore, his 
heirs and assigns, shall seem fit and agreeable, and not immedi- 
ately of us, our heirs or successors. Aiul Ave do give, and by 
these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, do grant to the 
same person and persons, and to each and every of them, license, 
authority, and power, that such i)Crson and persons, may take 
th(! ])rcmiscs, or any i)arcel thereof, of the aforesaid now baron 
of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, and hold the same to them 
and tlieir assigns, or their heirs, of the aforesaid baron of Balti- 
more, his heirs and assigns, of what estate of inheritance soever, 
in fee-simple or fee-tail, or otherwise, as to them and the now 
baron of Baltinujre, his heirs and assigns, shall seem expedient; 
the statute made in the parliament of lord Edward, son of 
king Henry, late king of England, our progenitor, commonly 
called the "Statute Quia Emptokes Tehkarum," heretofore 
published in our kingdom of England, or any other statute, act, 
ordinance, usage, law, or custom, or any other thing, cause or 
nuitter, to the contrary thereof, heretofore had, done, published, 
ordained or provided to the contrary thereof notwithstanding. 

XIX. We, also, by these presents, do give and grant license 
to the same baron of Baltimore, and to his heirs, to erect any 
parcels of land within the i)rovince aforesaid, into manors, and 
in every of those numors, to have and to hold a court-baron, 
and all things which to a court-baron do belong; and to have 
and to keep view of frank-pledge, for the conservation of the 
peace and better government of those parts, by themselves and 
their stewards, or by the lords, for the time being to be deputed, 
of other of those manors Avhen they shall be constituted, and 
in the same to exercise all things to the view of frank-pledge 
belonging. 

XX. And further We will, and do, by these presents, for us, 
our heirs and successors, covenant and grant to, and with the 



APPENDIX 619 

aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, that 
We, our heirs and successors, at no time hereafter, will impose, or 
make or cause to be imposed, any impositions, customs, or other 
taxations, quotas or contributions whatsoever, in or upon the 
residents or inhabitants of the province aforesaid for their 
goods, lands, or tenements within the same province, or upon 
any tenements, lands, goods or chattels within the province 
aforesaid, or in or upon any goods or merchandises within the 
province aforesaid, or within the ports or harbors of the said 
province, to be laden or unladen : And We will and do, for us, 
our heirs and successors, enjoin and command that this our 
declaration shall, from time to time, be received and allowed 
in all our courts and pretorian judicatories, and before all the 
judges whatsoever of us, our heirs and successors, for a suffi- 
cient and lawful discharge, payment, and acquittance thereof, 
charging all and singular the officers and ministers of us, our 
heirs and .successors, and enjoining them, under our heavy dis- 
pleasure, that they do not at any time presume to attempt any 
thing to the contrary of the premises, or that may m any wise 
contravene the same, but that they, at all times, as is fitting, 
do aid and assist the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, and 
his heirs, and the aforesaid inhabitants and merchants of the 
province of Maryland aforesaid, and their servants and minis- 
ters, factors and assigns, in the fullest use and enjoyment of 
this our charter. 

XXI. And furthermore We will, and by these presents, for 
us, our heirs and successors, do grant unto the aforesaid now 
baron of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, and to the freeholders 
and inhabitants of the said province, both present and to come, 
and to every of them, that the said province, and the free- 
holders or inhabitants of the said colony or country, shall not 
henceforth be held or reputed a member or part of the land of 
Virginia, or of any other colony already transported, or here- 
after to be transported, or be dependent on the same, or subor- 
dinate in any kind of government, from which We do separate 
l)oth the said province, and inhabitants thereof, and by these 
presents do will to be distinct, and that they may be immedi- 



520 APPENDIX 

ately subject to our crown of England, and dependent on the 
same for ever. 

XXII. And if, peradventure, hereafter it may happen, that 
any doubts or questions should arise concerning the true sense 
and meanini,' of any word, clause, or sentence, contained in this 
our present charter. We will, charge and command, that inter- 
pretation to be applied, always, and in all things, and in all our 
courts and judicatories whatsoever, to obtain which shall be 
jutlged to be the more beneficial, prutitable, and favorable to 
the aforesaid now baron of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns : 
provided always, that no interpretation thereof be made, where- 
by God's holy and true Christian religion, or the allegiance 
due to us, our heirs and successors, may in any wise suffer by 
change, prejudice, or diminution ; although express mention be 
not made in these presents of the true yearly value or certainty 
of the premises, or of any part thereof, or of other gifts and 
grants made by us. our heirs and predecessors, unto the said 
now Lord lUiltiniore, or any statute, act, ordinance, provision, 
proclamation or restraint, heretofore had, nuide, jiublished. or 
ordained or provided, or any other thing, cause, or matter what- 
soever, to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding. 

XXIII. In witness whereof We have caused these our 
letters to be made patent. Witness ourself at Westminster, 
the twentieth day of June, in the eighth year of our reign. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ARCHIVES 

Pl'llLISIIED 

Proceedings ami Acts of the General Assembly, 1636-:i7 to 1097. 

i) vols. Haltinioro. 
PnK't'edings of the Council. lOW to lf}(»"J. 5 vols. Haitiniore. 
.Juiliciai and 'IV»tani«'nlarv Kccorils of the I'mvintial Court, 1G;J7 to 

1(>.'»7. "J voU. Italtiniore. 
•lournal of tin' Marvland Convention, .Inly 'JO to August 14, 177">. 
•lournal ami C'on»'s|MMnlenn' of the Council of Safety, August 'J9, 

177.'i to.Iuly <!. ITTii. Haltiniore. 
tlournal and Con<'s|.()Mdence of the Council of Safety, July 7 to 

I)ec.'inl>er M. ITTii. Ualtiinore. 
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Ma.msckipts 

Journals of the l'i>|>fr House. Md. Hist. S)C., Haitiniore. 
flournals of the Lower Ilou>e. Md. Hist. Soe., Ilalliniore. 
Ads of the (ieii.Tal .\»eMil.Iy. .Md. Ili-f. S,K-.. I5alliin(»re: Land 

< Mlic'- and CiMirt of Appt-aU. .\ini,i|ioli-.. 
PnK'eediMj;>; of ili.- ( nimril. Mil. Hi-t. N..-.. I'.altitiiore. 
Proviini.tl Clint IJctnuU. Land Oilii c. .\iiiia|M.lis. 
County ( Mint i;.i.)id>. County .S-.ii -. <\(i-|.i tho-e foiC'hai les County 

wliii'li an- in the Land OHice at .\inia|«ilis. 
Itecoid-of thi' Ctmrt Lt<'| and Court Itainiof St. Clenjent's .Manor, 

If.MMo l(!7-_'. Md. Ili-f. S.,r.. I'.altiinoiv. ' 
Land <Mlir.- IJ.-.-.,rd-. Laud ( Uli.e. .\iii,ai.Mli<. 
.Minutes of th.- hoard ot K-\ .iiii.'. Mil. IIi>t. .^oe.. l5alliiiH.re. 

Kent |{..ll>. .Md. Hi-t. S,M-.. I'.ahi n-. 

Coiunii,>.sion Piooks. .M.i. Ili>t. So.-., r.altimor.-. 

021 



5-22 



niiu,i<M;i:ArnY 



Original Cliarlor of tlio City of Annapolis, Lau.l OlFico. Annapolis. 

Wills. Wills oni.-r. Annap..lis. 

Parish Ui-,'isl.'i>. .M,|. Hist. Soo.. Haltiniore. 

I'alvfit l*ap.Ts. M.I. Hist. Sor.. Mallinioiv. 

(iilnioie Tapers. .M,l. Hist. S..c., l'.allinion». 

l>nlany Tapers. .M,|. Hi>l. Soc. IJaltiinoie. 

Hill Tapi'is. M.I. Hist. .S,,c.. Malliinoro. 

Tiopri.iaiy Tap. is. M.l. Ilisi. s.>c.. Maltinion'. 

Misoi'llaiit'ous TapiTs. Md. Hi.st. Soc, iSaltiniore. 

Xkwsi'aikks 
The Marylauil (iazfltc State Lilnaiy. .Vnnap.ilis. 

WoKKS Ml Co.NTKMI'pl! \1!Y WuillltS 

Asl..j>. (;. : .\ Cliara.-tiT .if the Troviiice ..f MaiNlaml in ]*\>\<\. Talij. 

more, l^^n. 
Ha.iin. 1. ; Laws of Marylaiul at F.arL,'e. .\iiMa]«oIi^, ITti'i. 
llaski'll. .1. : .\. l> i<f .\ssrnil.|y pass.-.l in lli.- Trt>\nir«- of Mar\l.iii.| 

fiMin I'JI'L' lo ITl.'i. |,..M.I."M. IT-'-'i. 
Conk. I"..: The Sot w 1 Kartor : or, a \'.iya;;e to Maryland. I..hh|..ii. 

17ns. 
Dniany. D. : lli.> Ui-lit <.f tin- lidial>itants nf Marvland totli.- T.uelil 

of i:ni:Ii>li l.a\\>. .M.I. Hi-t. S.m-., Halt iinor.-. 
l>idan\. !»., .Ir. : Con^i.l-i at i<iii> .hi tlie Tn-pnety ..f ini|>osinii 'I'.iN.-s 

111 til.' T.ii!i>h ( .il.iiiie^, f.ir till- i'liipo-f III l!.\i urn- l>y Ai-I nf 

Tai liaiinnt . .Xliiiapnli-, \~i'i'>. 
Kd.li-. W.: I..ti.r- fiMiii Ain.riea. 17'".;' !.. 1777. LuiiiImii. 17:'_'. 
(In-.ii. r. : l,a\\s..f Maiylaml ina.le ^iin.- 17';'.. .Xnnapili-. 17*^7. 
Tark-. W.: Cdh-el i.m ..f th.- \..\\\- of .Maryland. .\ima|>oIi's. 17_'7. 
Willi.'. A.: lv.-lati.> lliniri> — N.irialis.- ff a \o\.i-.- to Marylan-I, 

wiilteii 111 til-' _\e.ii li;;i. T..illiiiioi.'. 1^7 I. 

\V..i;k- xy 1. \ I I i: Wi:i I I i:^ 

.\.l.ini~. II. I'..: M.ii nLiii'I'- iiillii.iMe 111 jiiiiiidiii,' .1 ( .iinin«'n\\.ali! 

..r til- ni«t..iy ..f tl..- A. •.•.-:. Ill "i I'liLli.' l.an.N l-s t!..- n|i| ( ,.: 

f.d.raii-'n. T.altiin..r.\ 1>77. 

Aivli.r. <;. W. : I'll- niMii.iiil..r nl ..f Marylan.l. I'.alt iiiior.. l"-^.'.. 

T.../iiiai,. .1. I.. Ill- l!i-t..iy ..f .M.irvl.h.l 1 1 i'« NMl.riHnl in 

1<;.;.; Ill ih- l;. -i.ial;..ii m l'-'". \"1. 11. T.-iUimor. . 1^.7. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 523 

Brown, W. H.: Maryland, the History of a Palatinaie. Boston, 

is,st. 

Davis, (i. L. : Tlie Day-star of Ainoi lean Freedom. New York, 18r)5, 

(Jauihrall. T. C". : ('lunch Life in Colonial Maryland. Haltiniore, 1885. 

Hanson. (1. A.: Old Kent, the Ka.stern .Shore of Maryland. Balti- 
nuire. I87*i. 

Harrison, S. A. : Wenlock Christison. and the Karly Friends in Talbot 
County, Maryland. Baltimore, 187N. 

Hawks, F. I..: Contrihut ions to the Kecle.siastieal History of the 
Inil.Ml States. Vol. 11. New York, \HMK 

ln<,'le, K. : I*ari>h Institutions of .Maryland. Baltitnoiv. 188;{. 

.lohuson, (i. : The History of Cecil County. Klkton. issl. 

Kilty. .1.: The l.andholdt-r's .\ssistant and Land (HVuv (luide. 
Hallimore, ls<>8. 

Kilty. \V. : The Laws of ^L'\ryland. Annapolis, 17!t!». 

Lapsley. (J. T. : County I'alaf im- of Durham, a .Study in Constitutional 
Hisloiy. N. w Yolk. 1!"M». 

M.iyt'r. L. : (Inmnd l»i-iils in .Maryland. Bait iiiu)re, iss:{. 

Mc.Mahon. d. V. L. : .\n Hisloiical \it'w of thi' (ioveniment of Mary- 
land, finin its Cdloiii/alion to the rrcsciit Day. Baltimore. 18.57. 

Mon:-, -L ('<.: The Lords iiallimon'. l>altiniore. ls7l. 

Nfill. L. : I In- I'omidi'i> of .Maixland as |i(irtia\i(| in .\Luiuscripts, 
Provincial Kfcoiils. and i^arly DocmiiiMit-.. Ail-any, 1n7<;. 

Osgood, H. L. : 'I'Ik- l*rojiii«'tary I'rovinn' as a Form of Colonial 
(iovernmcnt. NfW York, 1>'!»7-!(X. 

INmtv, \V. .S. : Papers nlatiii",' to the History of the Church in Mary- 
l:iu<l. Hartford. 1^7o 7s. 

Petri.-, (i.: Cltunh and Si.iif in Karly .Maryland. Baltimore, 18!»J. 

Kamlall, D. P.: Puritan Colonv in .Marylaiitl. Baltimore, l8.s»i. 

Kid;4«'Iy. I). : .\nualsof .Vnnapolis. Ba'.limon-. l-^H. 

Bil.-y. K. S. : ••Till- .\n«-i.-iil City." a Hi>lury of .\niiapolis in Mary- 
laud. .Xuniipoli-.. 1 ss7 

Sainsl'ury. W. N. : (. al.-ndar of State P-qiers. Colonial S-ri.'s. Lon- 
don. l>t;u-^|. 

Schull/. i:. I . : First Settlements of (ierinans in .Mar\land. Fred- 
erick. 1 >!!•;. 

Silver. .L .\.: Ihe Provisi,.nal (iovernnient of Marvlaiid. Baltimore. 
ls!».->. 

Spark-. F. F. : Cause- of the Mar\land Pev..!iition of lt;-!t. Baltimon-. 
1 >!••;. 

Steiner, B. ( . Hi-tory ot I:.1im «! lou in M.nxland. \N'.ishiii'Mon. 1>!)1. 



624 BIBLIor.KAPHY 

The Protestant Revolution in Maryland. (In American Historical 

Association Annual KejH>rt, lf<y7.) 

Life and Administration of Sir Kolvrt Edeti. Baltimore. 1898. 

Streeter, S. F. : Pai^rs relating to the Early History of Maryland. 

Baltimore, 1870. 

The First Commander of Kent Island. Baltimore. lft6S. 

Thomas, .1. W. : Chronicles of Colonial Maryland. Baltimore. 19<X>. 
Wilhelm, L. W. : Sir George Calvert, Baron of Baltimore. Baltimore, 

18S4. 
Local lustitutiuus of Maryland. Baltimore, 1886. 



INDEX 



Adjutant, 2X\ 2H5. 

AiJmir.iltv oi>urt, SXi. 

Agency, colonial, •-"-•T. ;«6. »:». 347. 

A);eDt and receiver general, Gl-72, HT), 

»•. ;f_', 177. 
Alienation tines. ."»_'. .V.i, (4. 7!». 81, H5- 

87, !»■_'. '.W. int. IdJ. 167. 4«W, 47--'. 
Allen. Heniitt. t;7. 4,'>«i, 4.">7. 
Annapolis. .v_>. i;w. 14_*. 147, 1H4, 'JK». 

2S't. ;<•_'.-.. :qj. ;«;•. :i.-.i. ;',70, 414. 4Ui, 

417. 4_tM.'_'. 4<f_'. 4<t.!. ■KC. 
Appeals court of, 177. !".»■.'. ^*i\ *J»4, 

•j;i5, '.M.'i, •.•4«i, -'4'.». :*ii7. 
Attorney Rcneral. r»s. t;7. ti'.i, 102, 153, 

13S, 177, IVi, •_»;«, •.'5_', •_»7o, ;«;. 
Avalon, charter of. .'). 

Bachelors, fax on. I4_', 14:5, ;{-JH. 41-». 
Kacoii, Rev. 'I III Unas, 4.">»>. 
Baltimore-Town, IS.i, IJii. -'SM, 41ii, 

41.S, 41!». 
Bennett, Kichanl, •.-.'. S^, Ji. -T). 
Bi8h«»p of London, 4:57 -Hti. 44'.», ATAi. 

4.V.», 4,V5. 
Blackiston. Nathaniel, jiovernor, i:W: 

anent, 4«fci. 4i;«;. 
Bla<lcn. Thomas, ){"'vernor. 1(>1. Hi;;, 

1»18. 17.<. '.Ni;. •is7, :an ft .x-,-./.. .U'l-.O::. 
Board of K.venne. •;•;-««. 70, 7;>,«t;{. ISI. 
Board ol Trad.'. >M. r_»4, _»:« et .tfy.. 

•.'40, :i»i4. 4.!;t. 4Ui, 4«;7. 
Bordley. .lol.ii li«»als. l.'.'i. 217. 2.">3. 
Bordley. Stepln-n, '.'.".l, .'dO. ;C>1. 
Bordley. Thomas, :CiO. 44«t. 
IVkSton Port Kill. 4<*;t. 
Bounties, IJl. 4o:(. 
Bray. !>r. Thomas, 4.t<UMl. 
Brent, (iilcs. IM. 177. "^ 
BurniUK iron, 2.">4, 2.V.», 2i», 2««, 27«. 

Calvert, B«'neilirt I>eonard, ct»vernor, 
M ; third lord proprietor, 7'.», VA. 



Calvert, Bene<iict Leonard, governor, 
S(if>r sftj., 144, liM, Uk>. iMi, I7'.l. 

Calvert. Cecilius, tirst lord proprie- 
tor, »;, r_', 1."). .'i. •_».{ J.-.. '_•»;. -js, .vj. i.->4, 
•j-jo. •-••III. 4J-_'. 4i'4-4-.'«», 4«;i, jo-j, .-.o;?. 

Calvert, l"e»ilius. secretary. tW, 14o, 
l.")7, l»i_\ 174, IS.', iv.'. :qs] Xvi. 

Calvert, I'harles, fourth lord pro- 
prietor, 7".'. ss, lA'. 154, l.'Hi. •Ji>7 '7 
.N»7.. :v>»;. 4."iO, 471. 47_'. 

Calvert, (.'harles. j;overnor, JS, rjLt. 
i:f2. lti;5. 171, Joi, Jin;. -J-'m. -JiO, :mt: 
second lord proprietor, ;>l-;>4. .V>, 
541. tiO. 7'.t, 1.V4, l.">. .m-J^Ni, Jl.-., ■.'■.•4, 
'J.".7, Jt^t, -Ji^. ;!.M. 41.?. 4til. 4ti_'. 

Calvert. Charles, jjovernor, -SO. 140, 
liv;-l»;5. l!i7, :t«v".. 

Calvert. Frederick, tifth lord pro- 
prietor, titi, SS, !C>, l.>4, 157, lth{, 171, 
;v'»7. :i.v.». :;(io, ;is«;, 4.-1O. 

Calvert. Georf;e. tirst Lord Biiltimore, 
5, 11. 1.'. 1.5, to, 154. 

Calvert. Philip, jiovernor. _»«. 1«>:{; 
scretary. -'7. l.'O, 171, 178, Ml, -232. 

Captains. .'.sO. I'Sl, •_>SJ. 

Carr.-ll. Charles, til. Vtii-iM, hH, ."fi?, 
.■«':u;«>7. 

Caveats. 51. tiO, 7-_*. 

Chancellor. 70. l.">.t. l^*)et .wq., hA, 174. 
l.s,-.. ISti, I'l.;, MK '-"28, •_';5_'. SM. 1^2. 

Chancery, c.mrt of. 87. •_»;<■.'- 2;{5, 24J, 
*J44>; examiner in. 18»i. 

Chase. Samuel. 217.400. 4!M, 4it7. 

Circuit courts. j;i,V2.>7. 24;>. 

ClailMirne, William. 12-18. •3>-24, 2l>, 
'J^*, 2."i7, :«0!t. 4.51. 4M. 

Clersry, dues of. 107. 112. ll.i. lir>-118. 
HW. 227. MO. .•M2, 4.W. 447, 4.'i.M58. 

College, efforts to found. 141-144, ;V.7, 
:C.".i, 4.ti». 

Colonels. '281. 282 

Commissary t'eneral. •;7, l.V?. 1.^8. 177. 
180. l.s.-.. I'.tl . 242, 24;5. 244, ;W«», .SKt. 484i] 

5 



626 INDEX 

Conimissionere, nomination of, ;VU, Eden. Sir Robert, governor. 74, 1" 

;tM. .tui. XM. mi. njy-171, -TT, ;«», 4,51, 4:c'. vi! 

Conditions of plantation. 50, (i'J, )>:(, -'AXi. 

7'J, 77. V2-2. Elections. 40, JM, 'J0»>. •.•0H-_»17, mi. 

Constables. l.%4, 1H4, 185. •J.tO, 'JSH, .'W'J. Kn;;iish staiiites. the (juestion of tlieir 

44^'«, 40i'r-44W. ext4'iision to .Maryland. 44. Ml. vj, 

Convii-is, duty on,. fJO.iV.'l.ifr., .<•-»•.•. .VM). Hi-'. Hm, 17m. l.s(>."is.l, .Ml. 'JHI, .Tj;* 

Coo.ie. .ioiin.":w-4'_'. •ri«i-_'77, ;j(>;t, :iiA, ;wuj, ;w.', a;**. 4 > 

Copley. Sir Lionel, governor, XA. 4.Vt. 4ti7. 

Cornwailis, Thomas. U!, lM-'Jt>, 177. KN,heat. 4'.». ."Wi, ."57, «», «iO, (W, •?.». 7.-,. 

1H4. 42M. 77. •.»7. KCJ. l(i;j. 

Cor|)orate eolouies. origin of. '2; goy- Kstales. Iionnds of, OH, W, 410; lo<-a- 

ernnient in, 4. lion of. 44. 104. |(C>, i:U ; size of, IU">. 

County elerks, liO. «i9, IM, 177, IM«.», Kvelin, (ieorge, HI, 17. 1M. J-tl. 

lliO. -'aj, i-M. :mi. Examiner t;eneral. 5H, 70. 71. 

Couniy courts. «», 131. 1.1%. 1H7. lM<.t, Ex|»orts. V2.i. 

•JlXi. •J.<«>--.'.?'_'. 2;«.-.yM, -.'41, •.'4-.', ■-'4.'.- 

>'4H. iVt, MO. :»!•, 4<W. 4<>7. Fairs, UW, 417. 41M, 4-.M. 

Court-martial, '^i^i. Fanners and re<"eivers of rents, ti'i. 
Court of Hustinus, 4-M. 77, 1>.l, 'M. '.».•. ;{-'7. 

Conn of PieiMiwiler. 4'.'1. ! Fees, controversy over. 170. 17H. •/•.T. 

Crad.K-k. Uev. Thomas. 144. j 'Sl\ ■-•4J. '2i\ •J44. m*. .ttW. IWH;. .;: ; 

Cresap, Thomas, :«i7 4<XI: re;;ulation of, 4.'<, ~:i. Urj, |ij_ 

Criminal code. 277. •.'78. IHi, 117. Iti7. IM.:. I'M. I'.r.'. •_•««. .d.T. 

Currency, M1-K.1. m, rjt>-12M, H!2, .M.t. 4.">7, 4<1M. 47-': thou^rhl to be exci >- 

;<71, .W-». 5<M. sive. 40. UV,. lUi. •.'4<>. iV4. 'Mr,; re- 

duction ..f. IIJ, llN. -.'l'.!, .■;4M. 4.-h|. 
Darnall, Henry, .W.r.l, ffcl. HI), 17M,.T_'»;. 4<i7 ; iiu-ome from. iMi). IM-J; coll,,. 

:ij». tion of. 71. liiii. isii, ;t4.i: pa\iii.i,! 

Darnall. John. 3--'7. .WH. of. in tobacco, I117. IIU. 117. llv. 

iK-hiors, insolveui. I.Tii, J-'i-l, •2Si, 4I«. r.'7 ; in the place of taxes. i;ii». JCv 

iK-niesne land. .VJ, .'(7. •*7"-'. 

Duckinu' stool. 4<»m. Kendall. Josias, governor, J'^-JM, .:>>. 
iMilany. Ihiniel, H4, 114-11»i, 122, li*. 7S, I.V.. KLt. 171. -"Ol. 

Ili7. ISii. •.'711. ■-'7.'.. .IVi. 44'.>. Field othcers. JH,-!. JM*;. 

l>ul.in>, Jr , Ihiiiiel. Mi; f^ ("v/.. HI, IMlt. Fines and forfeitures, ilT, ^40. 'Ms. 

.Lvi, .pi:;. :;«o. :w,. ;t»«H. :«»!•. 4M4Hmx , .i»ii ►-:*;•_•. :ii;7. .uls. .rra. 

Durham. Palatinate of, .*. I'M. Ii»i. I'.C. Fle.t. Henry. 1.', -«•. 

•-VH. 4'>l. Fori ( hiisiiana, iKiii. 

I>ui.|,, •.•«.•, .10. Fort CumlMrland, ;«W, ;UlJ. M'. .li". 
iMities, in general. :«:»; |M»rt. K'.MM. ittl. 

fu ft «/.; . tonnag.-. IM. -'•M. 'J'Xi. Fori Frederick. .'««, 313, XH), ;«1. 

■.m-.m.Ml . onfup..l.TM; onhoPM-s. Fr.eholds, .v.». UiS. 

•VJi; on liquors, l.w. IMI, :vs>, .f.".!. Fuller. Uilliani. 24. iS. 

'M'.i: on meal. I.W..'V4;«: on pilch, .fjt. 

rU'i: on rum. II'J; on s.Tvanis. l.T"!, (Jarih. Charles, agent. .172. .'O, 474, 

.'tJn-'V.'. :ri->. :«». ;cw. :v4.« ; on slaves, 4mi . 

l.«!i. .«22. :<•-•".». :«:<; on lar. .W. .-M.? ; Oerrard. Tliomas. 2r>. ."W. 177. 4.T0, 

on lobacco. M. 7'.i, HO, l.^. Mi». 171- Cilbert. Sir Humphrey, patent of . 'j 

17 1. I'm. .ro. :V4.t-:«4N; on tnrp»'n- (Jovernm.nl. siip(M>rt of. I.V.. li;7. 1" 

tine. .<J^» on wine, l.tM, 14.i. .T.'-.»,;«i'i. 174. t7M. lHt-lH4. .".il -'.'". M. •J'lK, .■■ 

;«".», .-ua. I .41)1 . :i44-.nM, :4»;i .rra, 4«7. 44H», 472. 4: . 



INDEX 



527 



GoTeniors housw, 142-144, 168, 173, 

(irain, 44. r_1>-123. 

Ureeue, Thomas, governor, 21, lfi.'<. 
171. 

Grievances, in general, 101, W2, U».<, 
4«iO, 4(i7, 470, 472, 473. 474 ; conferii- 
jng: tlie gruuliug of land, 72; prioe 
of lantl, 77: alienation lines, H."i; 
ferries, HS; vacating grants contain- 
ing surplus lanil, 101 : proprietary 
instructions, 1<>;{; creation of t>lH«'ts, 
1M>: one person holding many 
oflices, HIO, 2.H : sale of offices, I'.il ; 
sherifTs. I.s7, IHM; heavy taxation. 
}W; the lor<l proprietor's veto, 22.">; 
the juris<liction of the provincial 
C(uirt, 2.'K»; English statutes. 2«iti; 
Catholics, .{jr., .{27 : fees, rA't, ;r74. 
:«>2, ;W.», ;W«!, -.V.tO, 44W; license money 
from orilinaries, XtH, .'{.Vt; vestries, 
412; ordinam-e |>ower, 4«'>8. 

Hamcrsly, Hugh, secretary, 157. 

Hammond, I'hil, 21ri, 217, 2HH. 

Hart, .John, governor, «4. 121. l^. l.tO, 

140, i«i:t, n>4, 173, m:*, xct, x*>, 442- 

44«. 
Henderson. .Jacob, cominis-sary, 44;{- 

44<;, 44H-4.'".*). 4.'^4. 
H(dt, Chief .Justice, opinion of, 42. 
Houd, Zachuriah. 477. 47N. 4.S3. 
Hundred <oiirts. ZV), Zfl. 

Inilians. 3. IJ-l.'. 10. 20, 24, .'W. 41. '.»7. 
17."), 17»!. 27H. 2H1. 2S.3. 2!iO, ;i(»(). ;i(i;t, 
;«i7-;w2, :mh. .3Jt, ;»2i. .{.'.s. itjit, 4<»>, 

40'.», 410, 427, 42H, 4:t7. 44s'>. 

Ingle, Kichanl, 10 -►2. 2.-.7. :W!», 431. 

Instructions, proprietary, in general, 
l.'i*!, l.Vt. l.v.t. Ml, 1(12, Hi.3: concern- 
ing: Claiborne, l.'t; taking jx.sses- 
Kion of the government, 23, 2.'i : land, 
and the revenue arising thereon. .Vl, 

.V?, .V.t, <iO. •■,'.». lit, (fci. lifi. r»7, »iO, 7H, K'}, 

m, 100; ferries, KS; erection of a 
county. 2-31 ; license money from 
ordinaries, .323. :ri7. ."VW. .t.vt; military 
stores and parliamentary proce- 
dure, :«0-_»; fee*. :r:o. .3>«;; toleration, 
42ri; dues to the clergy and the 
division of itarinhes. 4M. 



Jenifer, Daniel of St. Thomas, 180. 181, 

2.J3. 
Jesuit priests. 40, 42t»-430, 44)1. 
.I«.hnsou. Thomas. 217, 400, 404, 497. 
Joseph, William, :«, 37. 
Judges of the land office, fi7, «», 70, 

72, 73, 85, 88, 89, 153, IW, 177. 101. 

;WM, 4.s(j. 

Justices court, 2:e, 241. 
Justices of the quorum, £46. 

ljii\t\ council. tiO. (M. ()2. 177. 
I-iwrence, .Sir Thomas, sei'retary, 62, 

IHO. ;v.M, .355, 4«i(). 
Lawyers. 14.'>. 14<), 178, 2ir.. 217, 449, 

4.*)A. 478, .'JO.3. 
Lewger, John, secretary, 120, 177, IM, 

IK"). ;«>.», 427, 428. 
License money, from ferries, 87-89, 

102, 142, 227, 472: from hawkers 

an<l pedlers, 310, .{-Jl. .T-.v. .3»iO; from 

ordinaries. 140, 143, 144. 1«7, HW, 

227, 2*2, 310-.324, 330. .•U8-350. .353- 

:w. 474. 
Lieutenants, 281. 
Lloyd. David, agent and receiver 

general, *'*>. »>7. 
Lloyd, Kdward, presi(^.')t of the 

council. 'MtA. :iA. 
Lloyd, riiilemon, judge of the land 

office, «;0, 72, 178. 

Majors. 281. 282. 

Manorial courts. 7, .V2, .V?, 408-411. 

.".IS. 

Manors, 52, 5.3. .%8. 75, iH;, 10.5. l.W, 

10."), 107, 4<U. 402,407-410. 
Manufactures, 121, 123, 124,404, 486 et 

Markets. l(». 417, 410, 421. 
Mililary stores, S4. ".N), 17'.», I7,t, 

•jH'.»-:iii3, :w.3, ;m<.i, -.ist;, 44>»i. 472. 
Money bills, 224. .ill. 317-.3,W.,3,'>8.47ti. 
Musternia.ster general. 184, 281. 

Naturalization. 175, 176. 

Naval otlicers, (17. 01, 154, 177, 186, 

:M3, .m;. 
Navi;.'ation .\cfs, 1.*.0, 4<»1, 462. 
Nicholetf, Charles. I«l9. 
Nicholson, Francis, governor, 1.37, 

1.38, L>(»7. 



INDEX 



529 



334 ; propriety of imposing a double 
tax on land held by Catholics, 334; 
propriety of imposing a tax on the 
proprietor's quit-rents, 334 et seq.; 
propriety of imposing a tax on lucra- 
tive offices, 335 ; governor's house, 
352 ; license money from ordinaries, 
358; allowance to the council, 365; 
paying the clerk of the council, 369, 
372; fees, 388, 390; access to the 
public records, 372; the Stami^ Act, 
479-481. 

Revolution of 1689, 37-44, 58, 90, 111, 
175, 176, 205, 208, 210, 234, 265, 291, 
344, 354, 374, 402, 424, 437, 464. 

Roads, 44, 119, 123, 124, 130, 131, 164, 
403, 504. 

Rousby, Christopher, 35, 462, 463. 

Royal provinces, 4. 

Schools, 130, 1.37 145, 343, 405, 504. 

Scire facias, writ of, 42. 

Secretary, 51, 58, 59, 60, 62, 65, 68, 69, 
70. 88, 92, 153, 174, 177, 180, 182, 184, 
185, 189, 191, 205, 206, 354 et seq., 
.358, 389, 393, 486. 

Sergeants, 280, 281, 406. 

Servants, 105, 129, 130, 1.33-136, 320, 

321, 341. 

Seymour, John, governor, 441, 442. 

Sharpe, Horatio, governor, 8(;, 87, 89, 
91, 100, 125, 1.36, 140, 141, 143, 161, 
163, 168 170, 179, 180, 216, 227, 252, 
253, 277, 287, 288, 312, 313, 316, 320, 

322, 328, 329, 332, 3M, 348, 353, 357, 
362, 451, 473, 477, 478, 488, 503. 

Sheriffs, 56, 58, 71, 92, 93, 154, 184-188, 

190, 200, 204, 208 et scq., 24(5, 247, 

249, 256, 342, 403, 405, 44(i. 
Slaves, 119, 130, 132, 139, 238, 278, 320, 

329, ;341, 342, 406, 408. 
Sons of Liberty, 485, 486. 
Spiritual court, 442, 446 e< .se^., 451, 453. 
Stamp Act, 180, 477-488. 
St. Inigoes, 89, .303 et seq. 
St. Mary's, 19, 24, 35, 52, 130, 200, 349, 

420. 
Stocks, 2.54, 259, 278, 408. 
Stone, William, governor, 21-26, 163, 

171,2.31, 4.'?1. 
Suffrage, 34, 78, 131, 19.S-201, 225, 22ti, 

422. 

2 M 



Surplus land, .55, 56, 60, 62, 99, 101, 

102, 167, 468, 472. 
Surveying, 51, 52, 55, 58, 59, 61-63, 70, 

71, 97, 98. 
Surveyor general, 51, 59, 70, 177, 185. 
Swedes, 29, 306. 

Talbot, George, 34, 35, 463. 

Taxables, 341, 342, 406, 407. 

Taxes, in general, 186, 339-343, 403, 
406; levying of, 175, 176, 310, 404, 
405, 411, 440; collection of, 186; 
lightness of, 130; thought to be 
heavy, 199; fees as taxes, 388, 391, 
398; exemption from, 8, 403, 519; 
imposition by the English Parlia- 
ment, 478 et seq., 481, 486; on: the 
proprietor's estates and quit-rents, 
100, 330, 333-337 ; carriage wheels, 
142, 143, 320; bachelors, 142, 143, 
329, 412; card tables, 143; billiard 
tables, 143, 329; lucrative oftices, 
227, 333, 335, 336, 337 ; on persons 
(poll tax), 283, 286, 289 et seq., 363, 
438; lawsuits, 320; legal proceed- 
ings, 329; laud, 329 et seq., 333, 3M, 
336, 3.37. 

Tobacco, culture of, 44, 82, 104, 106, 
119, 121, 124, 129, 130, 436; price of, 
34, 106, 111, 118 et seq., 131, 132, 218, 
453; as money, 107, 112-118, 126, 
128, 379, 380, 385, 386, 454, 455, 503, 
duty on, 79, 80, 81, 127; legislation 
to limit the quantity of, 106-109, 
110,111-114; legislation to improve 
the quality of, 109, 110, 114-118, 394. 

Toleration, religious, 423-427, 430-437, 
502, 503. 

Townshend Acts, 488. 

Treasurers, 154, 177, 184-189, 299, 343, 
.371. 

Trial by jury, 53, 56, 246, 247, 388, 
390, 392, 408, 479. 

T'rl4->„' .*- -Ct U /»^<^. o(t^ *t'j ' 

Utie, Nathaniel, 26, 177. 

Vacant land, .54, 70, 73, 77. 

Vestrymen, 410-412. 

Veto, the lord proprietor's, 34, 40, 56, 
113, 156, 1,59, 1()1, 162, 199, 202. 210, 
222, 223, 225, 22(), 267, 273, 275, 379, 
.380, 451, 4.54. 

Virginia, vs. Maryland, ll-Ki; treat- 



630 



INDEX 



nient of the Puritans, 21, 22; rpdiuv 
tioii of, by the Puritan commissioners, 
22, 2;{; price of land in, 77; regula- 
tion of ferries in, 88; tobacco legis- 
lation in, 107 et seq., 110, 114,4.55: 
Palatines in, 122 ; college of William 
ami ^lary, 140, 145; Bacon's re- 
bellion, 28, 202, 2!)1, :m ; Governor 
Calvert in, 309; during the fourth 



intercolonial war, 317, 319, 320, 322, 
323; fees in, 378, 383, .■J85, 386. 
Voting, compulsory, 201 ; viva voce, 212. 

Weights and measures, 403. 
AVliippiug-post, 254, 2(K), 263, 278. 
Wilkinson, Christopher, commissary, 
44:3-44(). 

Yeo, Rev. John, 4.36. 



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